How was it going to end? How touching the devotion of all these small satellites so anxiously forming escort? Onwards, at snail"s pace, moved our cortege which might at any moment be transformed into a funeral affair, but slow as we went we yet went fast enough to give the go-by to the French battleship _Gaulois_, also creeping out towards Tenedos in a lamentable manner attended by another crowd of T.B.s and destroyers eager to stand to and save.
The _Inflexible_ managed to crawl into Tenedos under her own steam but we stood by until we saw the _Gaulois_ ground on some rocks called Rabbit Island, when I decided to clear right out so as not to be in the way of the Navy at a time of so much stress. After we had gone ten miles or so, the _Phaeton_ intercepted a wireless from the _Queen Elizabeth_, ordering the _Ocean_ to take the _Irresistible_ in tow, from which it would appear that she (the _Irresistible_) has also met with some misfortune.
Thank G.o.d we were in time! That is my dominant feeling. We have seen a spectacle which would be purchased cheap by five years of life and, more vital yet, I have caught a glimpse of the forces of the enemy and of their Forts. What with my hurried scamper down the Aegean coast of the Peninsula and the battle in the Straits, I begin to form some first-hand notion of my problem. More by good luck than good guidance I have got into personal touch with the outer fringes of the thing we are up against and that is so much to the good. But oh, that we had been here earlier! Winston in his hurry to push me out has shown a more soldierly grip than those who said there was no hurry. It is up to me now to revolve to-day"s doings in my mind; to digest them and to turn myself into the eyes and ears of the War Office whose own so far have certainly not proved themselves very acute. How much better would I be able to make them see and hear had I been out a week or two; did I know the outside of the Peninsula by heart; had I made friends with the Fleet! And why should I not have been?
Have added a P.S. to K."s letter:--
"Between Tenedos and Lemnos. 6 p.m.--This has been a very bad day for us judging by what has come under my own personal observation. After going right up to Bulair and down again to the South-west point looking at the network of trenches the Turks have dug commanding all possible landing places, we turned into the Dardanelles themselves and went up about a mile. The scene was what I believe Naval writers describe as "lively.""
(Then follows an account based on my Diary jottings). I end:
"I have not had time to reflect over these matters, nor can I yet realise on my present slight information the extent of these losses.
Certainly it looks at present as if the Fleet would not be able to carry on at this rate, and, if so, the soldiers will have to do the trick.":
"Later.
"The _Irresistible_, the _Ocean_ and the _Bouvet_ are gone! The _Bouvet_, they say, just slithered down like a saucer slithers down in a bath. The _Inflexible_ and the _Gaulois_ are badly mauled."
_19th March, 1915._ _H.M.S. "Franconia."_--Last night I left H.M.S.
_Phaeton_ and went on board the _Franconia_. To-day, we have been busy fixing things up. The chance sailors, seen by the Staff, have been using highly coloured expletives about the mines. Sheer bad luck they swear; bad luck that would not happen once in a hundred tries. They had knocked out the Forts, they claim, and one, three-word order, "Full steam ahead," would have cut the Gordian Knot the diplomats have been fumbling at for over a hundred years by slicing their old Turkey in two. Then came the big delay owing to ships changing stations during which mines set loose from up above had time to float down the current, when, by the Devil"s own fluke, they impinge upon our battleships, and blow de Robeck and his plans into the middle of next week--or later! These are ward-room yarns. De Robeck was working by stages and never meant, so far as we know, to run through to the Marmora yesterday.
Cabled to Lord K. telling him of yesterday"s reconnaissance by me and the battle by de Robeck. Have said I have no official report to go upon but from what I saw with my own eyes "I am being most reluctantly driven to the conclusion that the Straits are not likely to be forced by battleships as at one time seemed probable and that, if my troops are to take part, it will not take the subsidiary form antic.i.p.ated. The Army"s part will be more than mere landings of parties to destroy Forts, it must be a deliberate and progressive military operation carried out at full strength so as to open a pa.s.sage for the Navy."
To be able, if necessary, to act up to my own words I sent another message to the Admiral and told him, if he could spare the troops from the vicinity of the Straits, I would like to take them right off to Alexandria so as to shake them out there and reship them ready for anything. He has wirelessed back asking me, on political grounds, to delay removing the troops "until our attack is renewed in a few days"
time."
Bravo, the Admiral! Still; if there are to be even a few days" delay I must land somewhere as mules and horses are dying. And, practically, Alexandria is the only port possible.
Wemyss has just sent me over the following letter. It confirms officially the loss of the three battleships:--
_Friday._
"My Dear General,
"The enclosed is a copy of a Signal I have received from de Robeck. I sincerely hope that the word disastrous is too hard. It depends upon what results we have achieved I think. I gather from intercepted signals that the _Ocean_ also is sunk, but of this I am not quite certain. I am off in _Dublin_ immediately she comes in and expect I may be back to-night. This of course depends a good deal upon what de Robeck wants.
Captain Boyle brings this and will be at your disposal. He is the Senior Naval Officer here in my absence.
"Believe me, Sir, "Yours sincerely, (_Sd._) "R. Wemyss."
Copy of Telegram enclosed:--
"_From_ V.A.E.M.S.
"_To_ S.N.O. Mudros.
"_Date, 18th March, 1915._
"Negative demonstration at Gaba Tepe, 19th. Will you come to Tenedos and see me to-morrow. We have had disastrous day owing either to floating mines or torpedoes from sh.o.r.e tubes fired at long range. H.M.S.
_Irresistible_ and _Bouvet_ sunk. H.M.S. _Ocean_ still afloat, but probably lost. H.M.S. _Inflexible_ damaged by mine. _Gaulois_ badly damaged by gunfire. Other ships all right, and we had much the best of the Ports."
_20th March, 1915._ _H.M.S. "Franconia." Mudros Harbour._ Stormy weather, and even here, inside Mudros harbour, touch with the sh.o.r.e is cut off.
After I was asleep last night, an answer came in from K., straight, strong and to the point. He says, "You know my view that the Dardanelles pa.s.sage must be forced, and that if large military operations on the Gallipoli Peninsula by your troops are necessary to clear the way, those operations must be undertaken after careful consideration of the local defences and must be carried through."
Very well: all hinges on the Admiral.
_21st March, 1915._ _H.M.S. "Franconia."_ A talk with Admiral Wemyss and General d"Amade. Wemyss is clear that the Navy must not admit a check and must get to work again as quickly as they can. Wemyss is Senior Naval Officer at the Dardanelles and is much liked by everyone. He has put his seniority in his pocket and is under his junior--fighting first, rank afterwards!
A letter from de Robeck, dated "Q.E. the 19th," has only just come to hand:--
"Our men were splendid and thank heaven our loss of life was quite small, though the French lost over 100 men when _Bouvet_ struck a mine.
"How our ships struck mines in an area that was reported clear and swept the previous night I do not know, unless they were floating mines started from the Narrows!
"I was sad to lose ships and my heart aches when one thinks of it; one must do what one is told and take risks or otherwise we cannot win. We are all getting ready for another "go" and not in the least beaten or downhearted. The big forts were silenced for a long time and everything was going well, until _Bouvet_ struck a mine. It is hard to say what amount of damage we did, I don"t know, there were big explosions in the Forts!"
Little Birdie, now grown up into a grand General, turned up at 3 p.m. I was enchanted to see him. We had hundreds and thousands of things to talk over. Although the confidence of the sailors seems quite unshaken by the events of the 18th, Birdie seems to have made up his mind that the Navy have shot their bolt for the time being and that we have no time to lose in getting ready for a landing. But then he did not see the battle and cannot, therefore, gauge the extent to which the Turkish Forts were beaten.
_22nd March, 1915._ _H.M.S. "Franconia."_ At 10 a.m. we had another Conference on board the _Queen Elizabeth_.
Present:--
Admiral de Robeck, Admiral Wemyss, General Birdwood, General Braithwaite, Captain Pollen, Myself.
The moment we sat down de Robeck told us _he was now quite clear he could not get through without the help of all my troops_.
Before ever we went aboard Braithwaite, Birdwood and I had agreed that, whatever we landsmen might think, we must leave the seamen to settle their own job, saying nothing for or against land operations or amphibious operations until the sailors themselves turned to us and said they had abandoned the idea of forcing the pa.s.sage by naval operations alone.
They have done so. The fat (that is us) is fairly in the fire.
No doubt we had our views. Birdie and my own Staff disliked the idea of chancing mines with million pound ships. The hesitants who always make hay in foul weather had been extra active since the sinking of the three men-of-war. Suppose the Fleet _could_ get through with the loss of another battleship or two--how the devil would our troopships be able to follow? And the store ships? And the colliers?
This had made me turn contrary. During the battle I had cabled that the chances of the Navy pushing through on their own were hardly fair fighting chances, but, since then, de Robeck, the man who should know, had said twice that he _did_ think there was a fair fighting chance. Had he stuck to that opinion at the conference, then I was ready, as a soldier, to make light of military croaks about troopships.
Constantinople must surrender, revolt or scuttle within a very few hours of our battleships entering the Marmora. Memories of one or two obsolete six inchers at Ladysmith helped me to feel as Constantinople would feel when her rail and sea communications were cut and a rain of sh.e.l.l fell upon the penned-in populace from de Robeck"s terrific batteries. Given a good wind that nest of iniquity would go up like Sodom and Gomorrah in a winding sheet of flame.
But once the Admiral said his battleships could not fight through without help, there was no foothold left for the views of a landsman.
So there was no discussion. At once we turned our faces to the land scheme. Very sketchy; how could it be otherwise? On the German system plans for a landing on Gallipoli would have been in my pocket, up-to-date and worked out to a ball cartridge and a pail of water. By the British system (?) I have been obliged to concoct my own plans in a brace of shakes almost under fire. Strategically and tactically our method may have its merits, for though it piles everything on to one man, the Commander, yet he is the chap who has got to see it through.
But, in matters of supply, transport, organisation and administration our way is the way of Colney Hatch.
Here am I still minus my Adjutant-General; my Quartermaster-General and my Medical Chief, charged with settling the basic question of whether the Army should push off from Lemnos or from Alexandria. Nothing in the world to guide me beyond my own experience and that of my Chief of the General Staff, whose sphere of work and experience lies quite outside these administrative matters. I can see that Lemnos is practically impossible; I fix on Alexandria in the light of Braithwaite"s advice and my own hasty study of the map. Almost incredible really, we should have to decide so tremendous an administrative problem off the reel and without any Administrative Staff. But time presses, the responsibility cannot be shirked, and so I have cabled K. that Lemnos must be a wash-out and that I am sending my troops to get ship-shape at Alexandria although, thereby, I upset every previous arrangement. Then I have had to cable for Engineers, trench mortars, bombs, hand grenades, periscopes. Then again, seeing things are going less swimmingly than K.
had thought they would, I have had to harden my heart against his horror of being asked for more men and have decided to cable for leave to bring over from Egypt a Brigade of Gurkhas to complete Birdwood"s New Zealand Division. Last, and worst, I have had to risk the fury of the Q.M.G. to the Forces by telling the War Office that their transports are so loaded (water carts in one ship; water cart horses in another; guns in one ship; limbers in another; entrenching tools anyhow) that they must be emptied and reloaded before we can land under fire.
These points were touched upon at the Conference. I told them too that my Intelligence folk fix the numbers of the enemy now at the Dardanelles as 40,000 on the Gallipoli Peninsula with a reserve of 30,000 behind Bulair: on the Asiatic side of the Straits there are at least a Division, but there _may_ be several Divisions. The Admiral"s information tallies and, so Birdie says, does that of the Army in Egypt.
The War Office notion that the guns of the Fleet can sweep the enemy off the tongue of the Peninsula from Achi Baba Southwards is moonshine. My trump card turns out to be the Joker; best of all cards only it don"t happen to be included in this particular pack!
As ideas for getting round this p.r.i.c.kly problem were pa.s.sing through my mind, two suggestions for dealing with it were put forward. The sailors say some lighters were being built, and probably by now are built, for the purpose of a landing in the North: they would carry five hundred men; had bullet-proof bulwarks and are to work under their own gas engines. If I can possibly get a pet.i.tion for these through to Winston we would very likely be lent some and with their aid the landing under fire will be child"s play to what it will be otherwise. But the cable must get to Winston: if it falls into the hands of Fisher it fails, as the sailors tell me he is obsessed by the other old plan and grudges us every rope"s end or ha"porth of tar that finds its way out here.
Rotten luck to have cut myself off from wiring to Winston: still I see no way out of it: with K. jealous as a tiger--what can I do? Also, although the sailors want me to pull this particular chestnut out of the fire, it is just as well they should know I am not going to speak to their Boss even under the most tempting circs.: but they won"t cable themselves: frightened of Fisher: so I then and there drafted this to K.
from myself:--
"Our first step of landing under fire will be the most critical as well as the most vital of the whole operations. If the Admiralty will improvise and send us out post haste 20 to 30 large lighters difficulty and duration of this phase will be cut down to at least one half. The lighters should each be capable of conveying 400 to 500 men or 30 to 40 horses. They should be protected by bullet-proof armour."