Gallipoli Diary Volume I Part 17

"With reference to your No. 4726, cipher. Private and personal. You need not be despondent at anything in the situation. Remember that you asked me to answer on the a.s.sumption that you had adequate forces at your disposal, and I did so.

"Maxwell must have misinformed you. I want the Australian reinforcements to fill existing cadres. Maxwell, possibly not to disappoint senior officers, has sent them as weak brigades, which complicates command and organization exceedingly.

"We gain ground surely if slowly every day, and now at 11 p.m. the French and Naval Divisions are fighting their way forward."

Tidings of great joy from Anzac. The whole of the enemy's freshly-arrived contingent have made a grand a.s.sault and have been shattered in the attempt. Samson dropped bombs on them as they were standing on the sh.o.r.e after their disembarkation. Next, they were moved up into the fight where a tremendous fire action was in progress. Last, they stormed forward in the densest ma.s.ses yet seen on the Peninsula.

Then, they were mown down and driven back headlong. So they have had a dreadnought reception. This has not been a local trench attack but a real battle and a fiery one. I have lost no time in cabling the glorious news to K. The cloud of these coming enemy reinforcements has cast its shadow over us for awhile and now the sun s.h.i.+nes again.

_20th May, 1919. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Aubrey Herbert saw me before dinner. He brings a message from Birdie to say that there has been some sort of parley with the enemy who wish to fix up an armistice for the burial of their dead. Herbert is keen on meeting the Turks half way and I am quite with him, _provided_ Birdie clearly understands that no Corps Commander can fix up an armistice off his own bat, and _provided_ it is clear we do not ask for the armistice but grant it to them--the suppliants. Herbert brings amazing fine detail about the night and day battle on the high ridges. Birdie has fairly taken the fighting edge off Liman von Sanders' two new Divisions: he has knocked them to bits. A few more sh.e.l.ls and they would have been swept off the face of the earth. As it is we have slaughtered a mult.i.tude. Since the 18th we are down to two rounds per gun per diem, but the Turks who have been short of stuff since the 8th instant are now once more well found. Admiral Thursby tells me he himself counted 240 sh.e.l.ls falling on one of Birdwood's trenches in the s.p.a.ce of ten minutes. I asked him if that amounted to one sh.e.l.l per yard and he said the whole length of the trench was less than 100 yards. On the 18th fifty heavy sh.e.l.ls, including 12-inch and 14-inch, dropped out of the blue vault of heaven on to the Anzacs.

Everyone sorry to say good-bye to Thursby who goes to Italy.

Rumours that Winston is leaving the Admiralty. This would be an awful blow to us out here, would be a sign that Providence had some grudge against the Dardanelles. Private feelings do not count in war, but alas, how grievous is this set-back to one who has it in him to revive the part of Pitt, had he but Pitt's place. Haldane, too. Are the benefits of his organization of our army to be discounted because they had a German origin? _Fas est et ab hoste doceri_. Half the guns on the Peninsula would have been sc.r.a.p-iron had it not been for Haldane! But if this turns out true about Winston, there will be a colder spirit (let them appoint whom they will) at the back of our battles.h.i.+ps here.

_21st May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." Imbros._ De Robeck came on board with Lieutenant-Commander Boyle of E. 4 fame. I was proud indeed to meet the young and modest hero. He gets the V.C.; his other two officers the D.S.O.; his crew the D.C.M.

Also he brought with him the Reuter giving us the Cabinet changes and the resignations of Fisher and Winston and this, in its interest, has eclipsed even V.C.s for the moment. De Robeck reminded me that Lord K.'s cable (begging me to help him to combat any idea of withdrawal) must have been written that very day. A significant straw disclosing the veering of the winds of high politics! Evidently K. felt ill at ease; evidently he must now be sitting at a round table surrounded by masked figures. Have just finished writing him to sympathize; to say he is not to worry about me as "I know that as long as you remain at the War Office no one will be allowed to harm us out here." Nor could they if he were the K. of old; the K. who downed Milner and Chamberlain by making a peace by agreement with the Boers and then swallowed a Viceroy and his Military Member of Council as an appetiser to his more serious digest of India. But is he? Where are the instruments?--gone to France or gone to glory. Callwell is the exception.

I would give a great deal for one good talk with K.--I would indeed. But this is not France. Time and s.p.a.ce forbid my quitting the helm and so I must try and induce the mountain to come to Mahomet. My letter goes on to say, "Could you not take a run out here and see us? If once you realize with your own eyes what the troops are doing I would never need to praise them again. Travelling in the _Phaeton_ you would be here in three days; you would see some wonderful things and the men would be tremendously bucked up. The spirit of all ranks rises above trials and losses and is confident of the present and cheery about the future."

Quite apart from any high politics, or from my coming to a fresh, clear, close understanding with K. on subjects neither of us understood when last we spoke together, I wish, on the grounds of ordinary tactics, he could make up his mind to come out. The man who has _seen_ gains self-confidence and the prestige of his subject when he encounters others who have only _heard_ and _read_. K. might snap his fingers at the new hands in the Cabinet once he had been out and got the real Gallipoli at their tips.

I can't keep my thoughts from dwelling on the fate of Winston. How will he feel now he realizes he is shorn of his direct power to help us through these dark and dreadful Straits? Since I started nothing has handicapped me more than the embargo which a double loyalty to K. and to de Robeck has imposed upon my communications to Winston. What a tragedy that his nerve and military vision have been side-tracked: his eclipse projects a black shadow over the Dardanelles.

Very likely the next great war will have begun before we realize that the three days' delay in the fall of Antwerp saved Calais. No more brilliant effort of unaided genius in history than that recorded in the scene when Winston burst into the Council Chamber and bucked up the Burgomeisters to hold on a little bit longer. Any comfort our people may enjoy from being out of cannon shot of the Germans--they owe it to the imagination, bluff and persuasiveness of Winston and to this gallant Naval Division now destined to be starved to death!

Sent my first despatch home to-day by King's Messenger. Never has story been penned amidst so infernal a racket.

CHAPTER IX

SUBMARINES

_22nd May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ News in to say that yesterday, whilst Herbert was here to take orders about an armistice, some sort of an informal parley actually took place. Both sides suddenly got panic stricken, thinking the others were treacherous, and fire was opened, some stretcher bearers being killed. Nothing else was to be expected when things are done in this casual and unauthorized way. I felt very much annoyed, but Aubrey Herbert was still on board and I saw him before breakfast and told him Walker seemed to have taken too much upon himself parleying with the Turks and that Birdwood must now make this clear to everyone for future guidance. Although Aubrey Herbert is excessively unorthodox he quite sees that confabs with enemies must be carried out according to c.o.c.ker.

After breakfast landed at Cape h.e.l.les. Inspected the detachment of the Works Department of the Egyptian Army as it was on its way to the French Headquarters. Colonel Micklem was in charge. At Sedd-el-Bahr lunched with Gouraud and his Staff. General Bailloud rode up just as I was about to enter the porch of the old Fort. He was in two minds whether or not to embrace me, being in very high feather, his men having this morning carried the Haricot redoubt overlooking the Kereves Dere. At lunch he was the greatest possible fun, bubbling over with jokes and witty sallies. Just as we were finis.h.i.+ng, news came through the telephone that Bailloud's Brigade had been driven in by a big Turkish counter-attack, with a loss of 400 men and some first cla.s.s officers. Most of us showed signs, I will not say of being rattled, but of having stumbled against a rattlesnake. Gouraud remained unaffectedly in possession of himself as host of a lunch party. He said, "We will not take the trenches by not taking the coffee. Let us drink it first, and then we will consider." So we drank our coffee; lit our smokes, and afterwards Gouraud, through Girodon, issued his orders in the most calm and matter-of-fact way. He declares the redoubt will be in our hands again to-morrow.

Our lunch was to furnish us with yet another landmark for bad luck. As we were leaving, a message came in to say that an enemy submarine had been sighted off Gaba Tepe. The fresh imprint of a tiger's paw upon the pathway gives the same sort of feel to the Indian herdsman. Tall stories from neighbouring villages have been going the round for weeks, only half-believed, but here is the very mark of the beast; the horror has suddenly taken shape. He mutters the name of G.o.d, wondering what eyes may even now be watching his every movement; he wonders whose turn will come first--and when--and where. This was the sort of effect of the wireless and in a twinkling every transport round the coast was steering full steam to Imbros. In less than no time we saw a regatta of skedaddling s.h.i.+ps. So dies the invasion of England bogey which, from first to last, has wrought us an infinity of harm. Born and bred of mistrust of our own magnificent Navy, it has led soldiers into heresy after fallacy and fallacy after heresy until now it is the cause of my Divisions here being hardly larger than Brigades, whilst the men who might have filled them are "busy" guarding London! If one rumoured submarine can put the fear of the Lord into British transports how are German or any other transports going to face up to a hundred British submarines? The theory of the War Office has struggled with the theory of the Admiralty for the past five years: now there is nothing left of the War Office theory; no more than is left of a soap bubble when you strike it with a battleaxe. Some other stimulus to our Territorial recruiting than the fear of invasion will have to be invented in future.

After lunch went to the Headquarters of the 29th Division where all the British Divisional Generals had a.s.sembled together to meet me. The same story everywhere--lack of men, meaning extra work--which again means sickness and still greater lack of men. On my return found a letter from the Turkish Commander-in-Chief giving his "full consent" to the armistice he himself had asked me for! A save-face doc.u.ment, no doubt: the wounded are all Turks as our men did not leave their trenches on the 19th; the dead, also, I am glad to say, almost entirely Turks; but anyway, one need not be too punctilious where it is a matter of giving decent burial to so many men.

GRAND QUARTIER GeNeRAL DE LA 5me ARMeE OTTOMANE.

_le 22 mai 1915._

"EXCELLENCE!

"J'ai l'honneur d'informer Votre Excellence que les propositions concernant la conclusion d'un armistice pour enterrer les morts et secourir les blesses des deux parties adverses, ont trouve mon plein consentement--et que seule nos sentiments d'humanite nous y ont determines.

"J'ai investi le lieutenant-colonel Fahreddin du pouvoir de signer en mon nom.

"J'ai l'honneur d'etre avec l'a.s.surance de ma plus haute consideration.

(_Sd._) "LIMAN VON SANDERS,

"Commandant en chef de la 5me Armee Ottomane.

"Commandant en chef des Forces Britanniques, Sir John Hamilton, Excellence."

_23rd May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Blazing hot. Wrote all day. Had an hour and a half's talk with de Robeck--high politics as well as our own rather anxious affairs. No one knows how the new First Lord will play up, but Asquith, for sure, chucks away his mainspring if he parts with Winston: as to Fisher, he too has energy but none of it came our way so he will have no tears from us, though he has friends here too. The submarine scare is full on; the beastly things have frightened us more than all the Turks and all their German guns.

_24th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Vice-Admiral Nicol, French Naval Commander-in-Chief, came aboard to pay me a visit.

Armistice from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. for burial of Turkish dead. All went off quite smoothly.... This moment, 12.40 p.m. the Captain has rushed in to say that H.M.S. _Triumph_ is sinking! He caught the bad news on his wireless as it flew. Beyond doubt the German submarine. What exactly is about to happen, G.o.d knows. The fleet cannot see itself wiped out by degrees; and yet, without the fleet, how are we soldiers to exist? One more awful conundrum set to us, but the Navy will solve it, for sure.

_25th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Bad news confirmed. The Admiral came aboard and between us we tried to size up the new situation and to readjust ourselves thereto. Our nicely worked out system for supplying the troops has in a moment been tangled up into a hundred knotty problems. Instead of our small craft working to and fro in half mile runs, henceforth they will have to cover 60 miles per trip. Until now the big ocean going s.h.i.+ps have anch.o.r.ed close up to h.e.l.les or Anzac; in future Mudros will be the only possible harbour for these priceless floating depots. Imbros, here, lies quite open to submarine attacks, and in a northerly gale, becomes a mere roadstead. The Admiral, who regards soldiers as wayward water babes, has insisted on las.h.i.+ng a merchantman to each side of the _Arcadian_ to serve as torpedo buffers. There are, it seems, at least two German submarines prowling about at the present moment between Gaba Tepe and Cape h.e.l.les. After torpedoing the _Triumph_ the same submarine fired at and missed the _Vengeance_. The _Lord Nelson_ with the Admiral, as well as three French battles.h.i.+ps, zig-zagged out of harbour and made tracks for Mudros in the afternoon.

We are left all alone in our glory with our two captive merchantmen. The att.i.tude is heroic but not, I think, so dangerous as it is uncomfortable. The big ocean liners lashed to port and starboard cut us off from air as well as light and one of them is loaded with Cheddar.

When Mr. Jorrocks awoke James Pigg and asked him to open the window and see what sort of a hunting morning it was, it will be remembered that the huntsman opened the cupboard by mistake and made the reply, "h.e.l.lish dark and smells of cheese." Well, that immortal remark hits us off to a T. Never mind. Light will be vouchsafed. Amen.

The burial of 3,000 Turks by armistice at Anzac seems to have been carried out without a hitch. All these 3,000 Turks were killed between the 18th and 20th instant. By the usual averages this figure implies over 12,000 wounded so the Lord has vouchsafed us a signal victory indeed. Birdwood's men were all out and his reserves, or rather the lack of them, would not permit him to counter-attack the moment the enemy's a.s.sault was repulsed. When we read of battles in histories we feel, we see, so clearly the value of counter-attack and the folly of pa.s.sive defence; but, in the field, the struggle has sometimes been so close that the victorious defence are left gasping. The enemy were very polite during the armistice, and by way of being highly solemn and correct, but they could not refrain from bursting into laughter when the Australians held up cigarettes and called out "baksheesh."

Last night the French and the Naval Brigade made a good advance with slight loss. The East Lancs also pushed on a little bit.

_26th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Entertained a small party of Australian officers as my private guests for 48 hours, my idea being to give them a bit of a rest. Colonel Monash, commanding 4th Australian Infantry Brigade, was the senior. He is a very competent officer. I have a clear memory of him standing under a gum tree at Lilydale, near Melbourne, holding a conference after a manoeuvre, when it had been even hotter than it is here now. I was prepared for intelligent criticisms but I thought they would be so wrapped up in the cotton wool of politeness that no one would be very much impressed. On the contrary, he stated his opinions in the most direct, blunt, telling way. The fact was noted in my report and now his conduct out here has been fully up to sample.

A horrid mishap. Landing some New Zealand Mounted Rifles at Anzac, the destroyer anch.o.r.ed within range of the Turkish guns instead of slowly steaming about out of range until the picket boats came off to bring the men ash.o.r.e. The Turks were watching and, as soon as she let go her anchor, opened fire from their guns by the olive, and before the destroyer could get under weigh six of these fine New Zealand lads were killed and forty-five wounded. A hundred fair fighting casualties would affect me less. To be knocked out before having taken part in a battle, or even having set foot upon the Promised Land--nothing could be more cruel.

A special order to the troops:--

GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, _25th May, 1915._

1. Now that a clear month has pa.s.sed since the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force began its night and day fighting with the enemy, the General Commanding desires me to explain to officers, non-commissioned officers and men the real significance of the calls made upon them to risk their lives apparently for nothing better than to gain a few yards of uncultivated land.

2. A comparatively small body of the finest troops in the world, French and British, have effected a lodgment close to the heart of a great continental empire, still formidable even in its decadence. Here they stand firm, or slowly advance, and in the efforts made by successive Turkish armies to dislodge them the rotten Government at Constantinople is gradually wearing itself out. The facts and figures upon which this conclusion is based have been checked and verified from a variety of sources. Agents of neutral powers possessing good sources of information have placed both the numbers and the losses of the enemy much higher than they are set forth here, but the General Commanding prefers to be on the safe side and to give his troops a strictly conservative estimate.

Before operations began the strength of the defenders of the Dardanelles was:--

Gallipoli Peninsula 34,000 and about 100 guns.

Asiatic side of Straits 41,000

All the troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula and fifty per cent. of the troops on the Asiatic side were Nizam, that is to say, regular first line troops. They were transferable, and were actually transferred to this side upon which the invaders disembarked. Our Expeditionary Force effected its landing it will be seen, in the face of an enemy superior, not only to the covering parties which got ash.o.r.e the first day, but superior actually to the total strength at our disposal. By the 12th May, the Turkish Army of occupation had been defeated in several engagements, and would have been at the end of their resources had they not meanwhile received reinforcements of 20,000 infantry and 21 batteries of Field Artillery.

Still the Expeditionary Force held its own, and more than its own, inflicting fresh b.l.o.o.d.y defeats upon the newcomers and again the Turks must certainly have given way had not a second reinforcement reached the Peninsula from Constantinople and Smyrna amounting at the lowest estimate to 24,000 men.

3. From what has been said it will be understood that the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, supported by its gallant comrades the Fleet, but with constantly diminis.h.i.+ng effectives, has held in check or wrested ground from some 120,000 Turkish troops elaborately entrenched and supported by a powerful artillery.

The enemy has now few more Nizam troops at his disposal and not many Redif or second cla.s.s troops. Up to date his casualties are 55,000, and again, in giving this figure, the General Commanding has preferred to err on the side of low estimates.