Gallipoli Diary Volume II Part 20

Now--I feel better.

The plot thickens. A cable just come in from the S. of S. for War:--

"The following statement has been made in letter to Prime Minister, Australia, by Mr. Murdoch: 'The fact is that after the first day at Suvla an order had to be issued to officers to shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered in advance.' Wire me as to the truth or otherwise of this allegation."

Murdoch must be mad. Or, is there some method in this madness?

Mr. Murdoch was not a war correspondent; he is purely a civilian and could hardly have invented this "order" on his own. No soldier could have told him this. Someone not a soldier--someone so interested in discrediting the Dardanelles Campaign that he does not scruple to do so even by discrediting our own troops must have put this invention about, _per_ Murdoch. Doubtless we strike here upon the source of these "unofficial statements" which have been flowing into the War Office.

All I remember of his visit to me here is a sensible, well-spoken man with dark eyes, who said his mind was a blank about soldiers and soldiering, and made me uncomfortable by an elaborate explanation of why his duty to Australia could be better done with a pen than with a rifle.

He was one week at the Press Correspondents' camp and spent, so they tell me, a few hours only at Anzac and Suvla, never once crossing to h.e.l.les. If then his letter to his Prime Minister is a fair sample of the grounds upon which Braithwaite has been condemned, Heaven help us all!

As a relief to these disagreeable thoughts, a Taube dropped a couple of bombs into camp. She flew so high that she was hard to see until the bursting shrapnel gave us her line. As she made tracks back through the trackless blue, the s.h.i.+ps gave her a taste of some big projectiles, 12-inches or 9.2. The aerial commotion up there must have been considerable.

At noon, sailed over to Suvla in H.M.S. _Savage_. We took our lunch on board. As we came into harbour the Turks gave us a sh.e.l.l or two from their field guns, then stopped. Young t.i.tchfield, the Duke of Portland's son, met us at the beach and brought us along to Byng's Headquarters, where I met also de Lisle and Reed. After hearing their news I started off with the whole band to make a tour of the trenches held by the 88th Brigade, under General Cayley. On the way I was taken up to "Gibraltar"

observation post to get a bird's-eye view of the line. Besides my old friends of the 29th Division I saw some of the new boys, especially the 1st Newfoundland Battalion under Colonel Burton, and the 2/1st Coy. of the London Regiment. This was the Newfoundlanders' first day in the trenches and they were very pleased with themselves. They could not understand why they were not allowed to sally forth at once and do the Turks in. The presence of these men from our oldest colony adds to the extraordinary mix-up of people now fighting on the Peninsula. All the materials exist here for bringing off the biblical coup of Armageddon excepting only the sh.e.l.l.

In the course of these peregrinations I met Marshall of the 53rd Division, Beresford, commanding the 86th Brigade, and Colonel Savage, R.E.

After tea with Byng, including the rare treat of a slice of rich cake, we went down to our friend H.M.S. _Savage_. The wind had risen to a fairly stiff gale, and the sea was beginning to get very big. Those field gun sh.e.l.ls had caused the _Savage_ to lie a desperate long way out to sea; we had a very stiff pull in the teeth of the waves, and every one of us began to think that salt water rather than the bullet was going to end our days. However, we just managed by the skin of our teeth and the usual monkey tricks, to scramble up on board. As I said in my wrath when I first stood on the firm deck, I would sooner have a hundred sh.e.l.ls fired at me by the Turks.

Captain Davidson commanding H.M.S. _Cornwallis_ dined; everyone liked him very much.

_6th October, 1915._ Left General Headquarters soon after 11 o'clock for h.e.l.les, taking with me Aspinall and Freddie. Lunched with Davies at 8th Corps Headquarters.

Afterwards rode across to Royal Naval Division and saw Paris. Then went with Bertie Lawrence, commanding 52nd Division, to his lines. Our route lay up Achi Baba Nallah and along the trenches to the Horse Shoe; then along Princes Street trench up the Vineyard, and back along the Krithia Nallah to the Headquarters of the 156th Brigade. There we mounted our horses and rode back to Corps Headquarters. I brought Steward back with me to dine and sleep the night. Colonel Tyrrell and Major Hunloke (King's Messenger) also dined.

_7th October, 1915._ Wasted energy brooding over the addled eggs of the past. Are the High G.o.ds bringing our new Iliad to grief in a spirit of wanton mischief? At whose door will history leave the blame for the helpless, hopeless fix we are left in--rotting with disease and told to take it easy?

That clever fellow Deedes dined; also Rowan Hamilton, son of my old Simla friend the Colonel of that name.

_8th October, 1915. Imbros._ At 11 a.m. Ellison, Taylor, Gascoigne and Freddie sailed with me for Anzac. There we lunched with the ascetic Birdie and Staff off bully beef, biscuits and water. Then, the whole lot of us, together with de Crespigny, Birdie's Staff Officer, hurried five miles an hour down the communication trench to the Headquarters of the Indian Brigade. After greetings we shoved on and saw the 2nd Lovat Scouts under Lieutenant-Colonel Stirling and met, whilst going round their line, Major Morrison Bell and Captain Oppenheim. They seemed in very good fettle, and it would have been hard to find a finer lot of men. Taking leave of the 2nd Lovat Scouts, we worked along the trenches of the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, under Colonel Mitch.e.l.l, until we came to the 1st Lovat Scouts under Colonel Bailey. Lovat himself was sick, but Peyton commanding the 2nd Mounted Division turned up just when the inspection was at an end. He had got lost in the trenches, or we had.

Next time the way was lost there was no mistake as to who had made the mistake. Birdie and I were pus.h.i.+ng along as fast as we could leg it back towards Anzac. In the maze of trenches we came to a dividing of the ways. Two jolly old Sikhs were sitting at the junction. I asked if the road to the left led to the Headquarters of the Indian Brigade. They said, "Yes," so on we went, I leading, Birdie following. The trench got shallower and shallower until, in a little grove of trees, it petered out entirely. But it seemed to begin again in the other side and so we crossed through the trees. Once there we found that the supposed trench was only a shallow scratching up of the earth, and that we were standing within a hundred yards of the Turkish lines just about half way between them and the Lovat Scouts! I shouted to Birdie and we turned and ran for it--for our lives, I mean. Luckily the Turks were slow at spotting us, all except one who was a rank bad shot: so tumbling back into the trenches from which we had emerged, we saved ourselves by the skin of our teeth. I could not have been smarter about dodging two or three bullets had it been the beginning of our enterprise and had the high minarets of Constantinople glittered before my eyes.

When we got back to where the two old Sikhs were sitting, as placid as idols, Birdie gave them his opinion of their ancestors. On reaching the Australian and New Zealand Division we were done to a turn, but G.o.dley revived us with tea and then we made our way back to our destroyer and to Headquarters. It was dark when we arrived and a bad storm was setting in--wind and rain--which went on till midnight.

Replies have come in to our enquiries as to Mr. Murdoch's statement to the Prime Minister of Australia that British Officers had been ordered to "shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered." As the Secretary of State seems to take this charge seriously, I thought it well, before I sent my answer, just to make sure that no subordinate had said, or done, or written anything which could plausibly be twisted into this lie. The Generals have denied indignantly; are furious, in fact, at the double insult to their men and to themselves.

Have cabled accordingly:--

"(No. M.F.A.B. 4491). From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Secretary of State for War. With reference to your No. 8554 M.O. 414 of the 5th inst.

I have _pro forma_ made full enquiries and I find that there is no truth whatever in the allegation made by Murdoch."

_9th October, 1915._ Had made my _band-o-bast_ for running over to h.e.l.les, but the Vice-Admiral cabled he wanted to see me if he could at 11.45. Anyway the sea is still a bit rough for the crossing and landing.

A lot of damage was done last night to the Anzac piers, two of them being clean washed away. Peter Pollen is off colour. Freddie and I dined on board the _Triad_.

Whilst at dinner got full reports both from Suvla and Anzac as to the effects of the storm. The southerly gale, which not only washed away the piers but sunk the water lighters at Anzac, has done no harm at Suvla except that three motor lighters have been driven ash.o.r.e. The Admiral is clear that, during southerly gales we shall have to supply both Anzac and Suvla by the new pier just north of Ari Burnu. The promontory is small but last night it gave complete protection to everything in its lea. By sinking an old s.h.i.+p we can turn Ari Burnu into quite a decent little harbour.

_10th October, 1915._ Made my deferred visit to h.e.l.les, going over this morning in the _Arno_ with Braithwaite, Val and Alec McGrigor. Looked in at the Clearing Hospital and cast an eye over Lancas.h.i.+re Landing. Then, in company with Jimmy Watson and Colonel Ayres, walked up to Corps Headquarters where we had a fine lunch with Davies, de Rougemont and the melancholy Yarr. Afterwards rode across to the Headquarters of the Royal Naval Division and on to their trenches, some 3-1/2 miles.

Generals Mercer and Paris followed us through their trenches. The Hood and Hawke Battalions were in the firing line where we talked to great numbers of old comrades of all ranks. Glad to meet Freyberg again (the man who swam to light the flares at Enos). Kelly of the Hood Battalion too, I saw, and Fairfax of the Hawke, also Commander King of the Drake Battalion and Burrows, a gunner who was running a bombing school with much zeal on a piece of ground specially patronized by the Turks as a target for their own sh.e.l.ling practice. Got back to h.e.l.les by the Saghur Dere and the Gulley. Going down the Gulley, nearly lost two of our attendant Generals, a shrapnel bursting between them with a startling loud report caused by the high banks of the Gulley on either side.

In the Gulley we met a swarm of old friends from Kent; Brigadier-General Clifton-Browne, an officer whose command I had inspected both at Potchefstroom and near Canterbury, with a Brigade of West and East Kent and Suss.e.x Yeomen. They made a brave showing, but he tells me some of them have caught this wretched enteritis already. Amongst others, I spoke to Douglas, commanding the East Lancas.h.i.+re Division, Major Edwards of the Suss.e.x Yeomanry, Major Sir S. Scott and Colonel Whitburn of the West Kent Yeomanry, Colonel Lord Guilford, East Kent Yeomanry. A cheerier crowd no one could wish to meet. If these are the type of men who spin black yarns for home wear, I can only say that not the most finished actors could better disguise their despair. General King, R.A., rode part of the way back with us.

After all this hard exercise, got back to the _Arno_ in a lather of sweat about 6 o'clock carrying Davies with me. Leslie Wilson, commanding the Hawke Battalion, had gone sick to-day, so sent him a telegram after dinner to the Hospital s.h.i.+p _Somali_, telling him his trenches had been found in apple-pie order.

_11th October, 1915._ Bad night with this beastly complaint. De Robeck came up at 11 o'clock to see me. He has had a message from the Admiralty asking him what number of extra troops could be maintained on the Peninsula if the units there now were brought up to strength. The Admiral asked me for the figures and the A.G. brought them over. My force as a whole is as near as may be to half strength. Half of that half are sick men. We have 100,000 men on the Peninsula, 50,000 of whom are unfit: if the unfits were up to strength there would be 200,000 men on the Peninsula as well as excitement and movement which would greatly reduce the disease. Bearing in mind that the Anzacs have been well supported by their Governments and that their units are fairly strong, these figures show what wait-and-see-sickness has meant to British Regiments.

The tone of this Admiralty question had seemed cheerful: almost as if the Higher Direction were thinking of putting us on our legs but, in the evening, another cable from K. gave a different and a very ominous complexion to the future:--

"From Earl Kitchener to General Sir Ian Hamilton. What is your estimate of the probable losses which would be entailed to your force if the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula was decided on and carried out in the most careful manner?

"No decision has been arrived at yet on this question of evacuation, but I feel that I ought to have your views.

"In your reply you need not consider the possible future danger to the Empire that might be thus caused."[15]

If they do this they make the Dardanelles into the bloodiest tragedy of the world! Even if we were to escape without a scratch, they would stamp our enterprise as the bloodiest of all tragedies! K. has always sworn by all his G.o.ds he would have no hand in it. I won't touch it, and I think he knew that and calculated on that when he cabled. Anyway, let K., cat or Cabinet leap where they will, I must sleep upon my answer, but that answer will be NO!

Just as I am turning in, a cable from the S. of S. saying, "there is an idea that Sir John Maxwell is not sending you as many troops as he might from Egypt. Have you any complaints on this score?" Rather late in the day this "idea." Certainly, I have never made any "complaints" and I don't mean to do so now. The War Office have only to look up their returns and see how many men are being maintained to defend us from the Senoussi!

Maxwell has never had less than 70,000 troops in Egypt, a country which might have been held with 10,000 rifles--ever since we landed here, that is to say. My troops can sail back to Egypt very much faster than the Turks--or the Senoussi for that matter--can march to the Ca.n.a.l.

In the same cable the S. of S. asks what is the cause of the sick rate and remarks that, "some accounts from the Dardanelles indicate that the men are dispirited." Small wonder if they were! When they see two Divisions taken away from the Peninsula; when their guns can't answer those of the enemy; when each unit finds itself half-strength, and falling--why then, tumbling as they do to the fact that we won't get through till next year, they _ought_ to be unhappy. But the funny thing is that the Cabinet, the Secretaries of State, are the people who are "dispirited" and _not_ the people out here. If the P.M. could walk round the trenches of the Naval Division at h.e.l.les, or if K. could exchange greetings with the rank and file at Anzac and Suvla, they would find a sovereign antidote for the blues and would realize that it was they who were down-hearted and _not_ the men at the Dardanelles. There was an old French Colonel, killed at Gravelotte; he had studied the cla.s.sic world battles and he shows that it was never the front line who gave way first, but always the reserves:--they, the reserves, watched bloodshed in cold blood until they could stand it no longer and so took to their heels whilst the fighting men were still focussed upon victory. Not the enemy in front but the friends behind are the men who spread despondency and alarm.

Charley Burn has arrived on the _Imogene_ with Dawnay.

Davies went back to h.e.l.les after tea. Dawnay says K. was most interested in him and most charming to him all through his stay until his last interview just before he started on his return journey. K.'s manner then, he said, had changed--so much so as to give him an impression that the great man was turning, or was being turned, against all of us out here. K.'s conduct at the first meetings is in full harmony with his message sent to Braithwaite for me by Fitz about a fortnight ago, saying I possessed his fullest confidence. The change of manner was marked and Dawnay is sure he made no mistake about it. But nothing has happened since the date of Dawnay's arrival and departure save a very well engineered withdrawal of the 10th and the French Divisions for which, in point of fact, we have all been rather expecting congratulations. Dawnay thinks some queer things are happening. He could--or would--say nothing more.

_12th October, 1915. Imbros._ Early in the morning got off my answer to K.'s evacuation cable. The elements, the enemy and ourselves are the three factors of the problem. Were I to measure my problem by the night flitting of the Irish and French Divisions (who lost neither man nor beast in the process), I could guarantee that we would shoot the moon with the balance of the force smoothly, swiftly and silently. That is to say, supposing the Turks and the weather remain constant. But these are two most inconstant things: no one can tell how a Turk will behave under any given conditions; the Turks themselves do not know how they will behave: the weather now is written down by the meteorologists for sudden changes; for storms. Unsettled weather is due and ought to be reckoned upon. Imagine a blow coming up from the South when the evacuation is half way through. That does not seem to be, and is not, any great stretch of imagination. Well then, having so imagined, we get a disaster only equalled in history by that of the Athenians at Syracuse: a disaster from which the British Empire could hardly hope to recover.

Twice backwards and forwards to the General Staff Marquee with the draft of my guesses, my first being that we would probably lose 35 to 45 per cent. But the General Staff have also been consulting their oracle and were clear for 50 per cent. Months of the most anxious calculations will not get a white man one whit forrarder in seeing into the brains of an Asiatic Army or in forecasting Mediterranean weather. Safest to a.s.sume that both brains and weather will behave as the German General Staff would wish them to behave rather than as they chanced to behave when the French and Irish went off a few days ago. So have ended by taking the Staff's figure because any figure being, in any case, the wildest of shots, their shot best suits my views on the issue.

"From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Earl Kitchener. Our losses would depend on such uncertain factors, enemy's action or inaction, weather, question whether we could rely on all troops covering embarkation to fight to the last, that impossible to give you straight answer especially until I have permission to consult Admiral. Once discussing this very problem with General Gouraud, we came to the conclusion that at Cape h.e.l.les we must sacrifice two divisions out of total of six divisions and Cape h.e.l.les easiest of three places to get away from. My opinion now is that it would not be wise to reckon on getting out of Gallipoli with less loss than that of half the total force as well as guns, which must be used to the last, stores, railway plant and horses.

Moral of those who got off would fall very low. One quarter would probably get off quite easily, then the trouble would begin. We might be very lucky and lose considerably less than I have estimated. On the other hand, with all these raw troops at Suvla and all these Senegalese at Cape h.e.l.les, we might have a veritable catastrophe."

Do the men toying with the idea of bringing off our men not see that thereby the Turks will be let loose somewhere; not nowhere? Do they not see that if they are feeling the economic pinch of keeping their side of the show in being, the Turks, much weaker economically, must be feeling it much more--!

It was a relief to get this perilous stuff off my chest, and in a brighter frame of mind, sailed for Anzac on the destroyer _Lewis_. We took biscuits and bully beef with us but the hospitable sailors insisted on regaling us with a hot meal. Sat in cabin all the way as usual writing up my record. Freddie tells me that these studious habits of mine have started the shave that I spend my time composing poetry, especially during our battles!

At Anzac Birdwood took us round the trenches and underground pa.s.sages about Russell's Top and Turk's Head, held by the 5th Brigade, 2nd Division, under Legge. Half way up to Russell's Top was the 3rd Battery Australian Field Artillery:--talked with Major King, the C.O. Next unit was the 20th Infantry Battalion under Major Fitzgerald. Colonel Holmes, commanding the 5th Infantry Brigade, and Wilson, his Brigade Major, took us through their cave dwellings. Ex-westerners say that in France they have nothing to touch these Australian tunnellings. In one place they are boring into a crater only 20 feet from the Turkish trench. There is nothing unusual in the fact, but there is in the great depth they are going down so as to cross the danger zone far below the beaten track of mines and counter-mines. On the steep slope in another place there is a complete underground trench running parallel to, and only a short bomb-throw from, a Turkish trench. We went through it with a lantern.

Sandbags, loopholes, etc., all are there, but blind! They are still veiled from view by several feet of clay. To-morrow night the Anzacs are going to chip off the whole upper crust of earth, and when light dawns the Turks will find a well equipped trench, every loophole manned, within bombing range of their own line.

Other notables met with were Major Murphy of the 20th Infantry Battalion, Major Anderson (an old friend) commanding the Australian Field Artillery, and Captain Perry Oakdene, the Engineer Officer on the job. Saw Birdie and returned in the destroyer about 6.30. The day had been so quiet that it would have been almost dull had it not been for the sightseeing--hardly a shot was fired by Turk or Anzac with either gun, trench mortar or rifle.