Gallipoli Diary Volume I Part 8

Units of the 29th Division have been coming along in their transports all day. The bay is alive with s.h.i.+ps.

_11th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian."_ One of those exquisite days when the sunlight penetrates to the heart. Admiral Guepratte, commanding the French Fleet, called at 9.45 and in due course I returned his visit, when I was electrified to find at his cabin door no common sentry but a Beefeater armed with a large battleaxe, dating from about the period of Charlemagne. The Admiral lives quite in the old style and is a delightful personage; very gay and very eager for a chance to measure himself against the enemy. Guepratte, though he knows nothing officially, believes that his Government are holding up their sleeve a second French Division ear-marked Gallipoli! But why bottle up trumps; trumps worth a King's ransome, or a Kaiser's? He gives twice who gives quickly (in peace); he gives tenfold who gives quickly (in war). The devil of it is the French dare not cable home to ask questions, and as for myself, I have not been much encouraged--so far!

During the afternoon Admirals de Robeck and Wemyss came on board to work together with the General Staff on technical details. They too have heard these rumours about the second French Division, and Wemyss is in dismay at the thought of having to squeeze more s.h.i.+ps into Mudros harbour. His anxiety has given me exactly the excuse I wanted, so I have dropped this fly just in front of K.'s nose, telling him that "There are persistent rumours here amongst the French that General d'Amade's Command is to be joined by another French Division. Just in case there is truth in the report you should know that Mudros harbour is as full as it will hold until our dash for the Peninsula has been made." We will see what he says. If the Division exists, then the Naval people will recommend Bizerta for their base; the s.h.i.+ps can sail right up to the Peninsula from there and land right away until things on Lemnos and Tenedos have shaken themselves down.

Our first Taube: it pa.s.sed over the harbour at a great height. One of our lumbering seaplanes went up after it like an owl in sunlight, but could rise no higher than the masts of the Fleet.

_12th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos._ The _Queen Elizabeth_ has been having some trouble with her engines and in the battle of the 18th was only able to use one of her propellers. Now she has been overhauled and the Admiral has asked me to come on board for her steam trials.

These are to take place along the coastline of the Peninsula and I have got leave to bring with me a party selected from Divisions and Brigades.

So when I went aboard this morning at 8.30 there were about thirty-five Officers present. Starting at once, we steamed at great pace half way up the Gulf of Saros and about 1 o'clock turned to go back, slowing down and closing in to let me take a second good look at the coast. Our studies were enlivened by an amusing incident. Nearing Cape h.e.l.les, the _Queen Elizabeth_ went astern, so as to test her reverse turbines. The enemy, who must have been watching us like a mouse does a cat, had the ill-luck to select just this moment to salute us with a couple of sh.e.l.ls. As they had been allowing for our speed they were ludicrously out of it, the shot striking the water half a mile ahead. We then lay off Cape h.e.l.les whilst a very careful survey of the whole of that section was being made. The Turks, disgusted by their own bad aim, did not fire again. On our way back we pa.s.sed three fakes, old liners painted up, funnelled and armed with dummy guns to take off the _Tiger_, the _Inflexible_ and the _Indomitable_. Riding at anchor there, they had quite the man-o'-war air and if they draw the teeth of enemy submarines (their torpedoes), as they are meant to do, the artists should be given decorations. At 6 p.m. dropped anchor and I trans.h.i.+pped myself to the _Arcadian_. Birdwood and Hunter-Weston had turned up during the day; the latter dined and is now more sanguine than myself. He has been getting to know his new command better and he says that he did not appreciate the 29th Division when he wrote his appreciation!

_13th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian."_ Heavy squalls of rain and wind last night. _Band-o-bast_ badly upset; boats also bottoms upwards and at dawn--here in harbour--we found ourselves clean cut off from the sh.o.r.e.

What a ticklish affair the great landing is going to be! How much at the mercy of the winds and waves! Aeolus and Neptune have hardly lost power since Greeks and Trojans made history out yonder!

Have sent K. an electrical pick-me-up saying that the height of the _Queen Elizabeth_ fire control station had enabled me to see the lie of the land better than on my previous reconnaissance, and that, given good luck, we hope to get ash.o.r.e without too great a loss.

In the afternoon the wind moderated and I spent an hour or two watching practice landings by Senegalese. Our delay is loss, but yet not clear loss; that's a sure thing. These niggy-wigs were as awkward as golly-wogs in the boats. Every extra hour's practice will save some lives by teaching them how to make short work of the ugliest bit of their job.

_14th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian," Lemnos._ A day so exquisitely lovely that it should be chronicled in deathless verse. But we gaze at the gla.s.sy sea and turn to the deep blue cloudless sky, victory our only thought.

Colonel d.i.c.k, King's Messenger, has arrived bringing letters up to 3rd instant. Or rather, he was supposed to have brought them, and it was hoped the abundance of his intelligence would have borne some relation to the cost of his journey,--about 80 it has been reckoned. As a matter of fact, apart from some rubbish, he brings _one_ letter for me; none for any of the others. Not even a file of newspapers; not even a newspaper! In India many, many years ago, we used to call d.i.c.k _Burra dik ha_, Hindustani for, _it is a great worry_. So he is only playing up to his sobriquet. The little ewe lamb is an epistle from Fitz giving me a lively sketch of the rumpus at the War Office when its pontiffs grasped for the first time the true bearing of their own orders. There was a rush to saddle poor us with the delay as soon as the Cabinet began to show impatience. They seem to have expected the 29th Division to arrive at top speed in a united squadron to rush straightway ash.o.r.e.

They don't yet quite realise, I daresay, that not one of their lovely s.h.i.+ps has yet put in an appearance. That the men who packed the transports and fixed their time tables should say we are too slow is hardly playing the game.

Never lose your hair: that is a good soldier's motto. My cable of last night, wherein I tried to calm their minds by telling them the sea was rough and that, even if every one had been here with gaiter b.u.t.tons complete, I must have waited for a change in the weather, has answered Fitz's letter by antic.i.p.ation.

Worked all day in my office like a n.i.g.g.e.r and by mid-day had got almost as black as my simile! We are coaling and life has grown dark and noisy.

In the middle of it, Ashmead-Bartlett came aboard to see me. He has his quarters on the _Queen Elizabeth_ as one of the Admiralty authorised Press Correspondents, or rather, as the only authorised correspondent.

In Manchuria he was known and his writing was well liked. When he had gone, de Robeck and I put through a good lot of business very smoothly.

A little later on, Captain Ivanoff, commanding H.I.M.S. _Askold_, (a Russian cruiser well-known to fame in Manchurian days), did me the honour to call.

After lunch went ash.o.r.e and saw parties of Australians at embarking and disembarking drill. Colonel Paterson, the very man who bear-led me on tour during my Australian inspection, was keeping an eye on the "Boys."

The work of the Australians and Senegalese gave us a good object lesson of the relative brain capacities of the two races. Next I went and inspected the Armoured Car Section of the Royal Naval Division under Lieutenant-Commander Wedgwood. He is a mighty queer chap. Took active part in the South African War. Afterwards became a pacifist M.P.; here he is again with war paint and tomahawk. Give me a Pacifist in peace and a Jingo in war. Too often it is the other way about.

All this took me on to 5.30 p.m. and when I came back on board, Hunter-Weston was here. He has been out since last night on H.M.S.

_Dartmouth_ to inspect the various landing places. His whole tone about the Expedition has been transformed. Now he has become the most sanguine of us all. He has great hopes that we shall have Achi Baba in our hands by sunset on the day of landing. If so he thinks we need have no fear for the future.

All is worked out now and I do not quite see how we could improve upon our scheme with the means at our disposal. If these "means" included a larger number of boats and steam launches, then certainly, by strengthening our forces on either flank, viz., at Morto Bay (where we are sending only one Battalion) and at a landing under the cliffs a mile West of Krithia (where we are sending one Battalion), we should greatly better our chances. Also, a battery of field guns attached to the Morto Bay column, and a couple of mountain guns added to the Krithia column would add to our prospects of making a real big scoop. But we cannot spare the sea transport except by too much weakening and delaying the landing at the point of the Peninsula; nor dare I leave myself without any reserve under my own hand. I am inclined, all the same, to squeeze one Marine Battalion out of the Naval Division to strengthen our threat to Krithia. Hunter-Weston will be in executive command of everything South of Achi Baba; Birdwood of everything to the North.

I went very closely with Hunter-Weston into the question of a day or night attack. My own leanings are in favour of the first boat-loads getting ash.o.r.e before break of dawn, but Hunter-Weston is clear and strong for daylight. There is a very strong current running round the point; the exact lie of the beaches is unknown and he thinks the confusion inseparable from any landing will be so aggravated by attempting it in the dark that he had rather face the losses the men in boats must suffer from aimed fire. Executively he is responsible and he is backed by his naval a.s.sociates.

Birdwood, on the other hand, is of one mind with me and is going to get his first boat-loads ash.o.r.e before it is light enough to aim. He has no current to trouble him, it is true, but he is not landing on any surveyed beach and the opposition he will meet with is even more unknown than in the case of h.e.l.les and Sedd-el-Bahr.

When a sportsman goes shark fis.h.i.+ng, he should beware lest he be mistaken for the bait. Gaily I cast my fly over K. and now he has snapped off my head. That story about a second French Division was false. K. merely quotes the number of my question and adds, "The rumour is baseless." Well, "_tant pis_," as Guepratte would say with a shrug of his shoulders. Our first step won't have the weight behind it we had permitted ourselves for some hours to hope. _Everywhere_ the first is the step that counts but _nowhere_ more so than in an Oriental War.

Now that the French Division has been snuffed out, how about the Grand Duke Nicholas, General Istomine and their Russian Divisions? Are they also to prove phantoms? Certainly, in some form or another, they ought to be brought into our scheme and, even if only at a distance, bring some pressure to bear upon the Turks at the time of our opening move. I think my best way of getting into touch will be by wireless from de Robeck to the Russian Admiral in the Black Sea.

d.i.c.k dines, also Birdwood.

_15th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos._ Boarded H.M.S. _Dublin_ (Captain Kelly) at 9.30 this morning, where Admiral de Robeck met me.

Sailed at once and dropped anchor off Tenedos at noon.

Landed and made a close inspection of the Aerodrome where we were taken round by two young friends of mine, Commander Samson and Captain Davies, Naval Air Service. By a queer fluke these are the very two men with whom I did my very first flight! On that never to be forgotten day Samson took up Winston and Davies took me. Like mallards we shot over the Medway and saw the battles.h.i.+ps as if they were little children's playthings far away down below us. Now the children are going to use their pretty toys and will make a nice noise with them in the world.

After lunch spent the best part of two hours in a small cottage with Samson and Keyes trying to digest the honey brought back by our busy aeroplane bees from their various flights over Gallipoli. The Admiral went off on some other naval quest.

Samson and Davies are fliers of the first water--and not only in the air. They carry the whole technique of their job at their finger tips.

The result of K.'s was.h.i.+ng his hands of the Air is that the Admiralty run that element entirely. Samson is Boss. He has brought with him two Maurice Farmans and three B.E.2s. The Maurice Farmans with 100 H.P.

Renaults; the B.E.2s with 70 Renaults. These five machines are good although one of the B.E.2s is dead old.

Also, he brought eight Henri Farmans with 80 Gnome engines. He took them because they were new and there was nothing else new; but they are no use for war.

Two B.E.2C.s with 70 Renaults: these are absolutely useless as they won't take a pa.s.senger.

One Broguet 200 H.P. Canton engine; won't fly.

Two Sopwith Scouts: 80 Gnome engines; very old and can't be used owing to weakness of engine mounting.

One very old but still useful Maurice Farman with 140 Canton engine.

That is the demnition total and it pans out at five serviceable aeroplanes for the Army. There are also some seaplanes with us but they are not under Samson, and are purely for naval purposes. Amongst those are two good "Shorts," but the others are no use, they say, being wrong type and underpowered.

The total nominal strength of Samson's Corps is eleven pilots and one hundred and twenty men. As everyone knows, no Corps or Service is ever up to its nominal strength; least of all an Air Corps. The dangerous shortage is that in two-seater aeroplanes as we want our Air Service now for spotting and reconnaissances. If, _after_ that requirement had been met, we had only a bombing force at our disposal, the Gallipoli Peninsula, being a very limited s.p.a.ce with only one road and two or three harbours on it, could probably be made untenable.

Commander Samson's estimate of a minimum force for this "stunt," as he calls our great enterprise, is 30 good two-seater machines; 24 fighters; 40 pilots and 400 men. So equipped he reckons he could take the Peninsula by himself and save us all a vast lot of trouble.

But, strange as it may seem, flying is not my "stunt." I dare not even mention the word "aeroplane" to K., and I have cut myself off from correspondence with Winston. I did this thing deliberately as Braithwaite reminds me every time I am tempted to sit down and unbosom myself to one who would sympathise and lend us a hand if he could: in truth, I am torn in two about this; but I still feel it is wiser and better so; not only from the K. point of view but also from de Robeck's.

He (de Robeck) might be quite glad I should write once to Winston on one subject but he would never be sure afterwards I was not writing on others. On the way back I spoke to the Admiral, but I don't know whether he will write himself or not. Ventured also a little bit out of my own element in another direction, and begged him not to put off sending the submarine through the Straits until the day of our landing, but to let her go directly she was ready. He does not agree. He has an idea (I hope a premonition) that the submarine will catch Enver hurrying down to the scene of action if we wait till the day of the attack.

Even more than in the Fleet I find in the Air Service the profound conviction that, if they could only get into direct touch with Winston Churchill, all would be well. Their faith in the First Lord is, in every sense, _touching_. But they can't get the contact and they are thoroughly imbued with the idea that the Sea Lords are at the best half-hearted; at the worst, actively antagonistic to us and to the whole of our enterprise. The photographs, etc., I have studied make it only too clear that the Turks have not let the gra.s.s grow under their feet since the first bombardment; the Peninsula, in fact, is better defended than it was. _Per contra_ the momentum, precision, swiftness and staying power of our actual attack will be at least twice as great now as it would have been at the end of March.

Returned to Lemnos about 7.30 p.m.

While we were away my Staff got aboard the destroyer _Colne_ and steamed in her to the mouth of the Dardanelles. There the whole precious load of red tabs transs.h.i.+pped to H.M.S. _Triumph_ (Captain Fitzmaurice), who forthwith took up her station opposite Morto Bay and began firing salvos with her 6-inch guns at the trenches on the face of the hill. At first the Staff watched the show with much enjoyment from the bridge, but when howitzers from the Asiatic side began to lob sh.e.l.l over the s.h.i.+p, the Captain hustled them all into the conning tower. The Turks seem to have shot pretty straight. The first three fell fifty yards short of the s.h.i.+p; the fourth sh.e.l.l about twenty yards over her. The next three got home. One cut plumb through the bridge (where all my brains had been playing about two minutes previously) and burst on the deck just outside the conning tower. Some cordite cartridges were lying outside of it and these went off with a great flare. Another struck the funnel and the third came in on the waterline. Fifteen more sh.e.l.ls were then fired with just a little bit too much elevation and pa.s.sed over. Only two men were wounded,--fractured legs. Captain Fitzmaurice now decided that honour and dignity were satisfied and so fell back slowly towards Cape h.e.l.les to try the effect of his guns on the barbed wire entanglements. A good deal of ammunition was expended but only one hit on the entanglement was registered, and that did not seem to do any harm. The fire was described to me as inaccurate. The fact is, as was agreed between the two services at Malta, the whole principle of naval gunnery is different from the principles of garrison or field artillery shooting. Before they will be much good at landmarks, the sailors will have to take lessons in the art.

Pa.s.sed a very interesting evening, every one excited, I with my aeroplane reports; the Staff with the powder they had smelt.

Two of the Australian Commanding Officers dined and I showed them the aerial photographs of the enemy trenches, etc. The face of one of them grew very long; so long, in fact, that I feared he was afraid; for I own these photos are frightening. So I said, "You don't seem to like the look of that barbed wire, Colonel?" To which he replied, "I was worrying how and where I would feed and water the prisoners."

_16th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos._ Spent the forenoon in interviews beginning at 10 a.m. with de Robeck and Mr. Fitzmaurice, late dragoman at the Emba.s.sy at Constantinople. Mr. Fitzmaurice says the Turks will put up a great fight at the Dardanelles. They had believed in the British Navy, and, a month ago, they were shaking in their shoes.

But they had not believed in the British Army or that a body so infinitely small would be so saucy as to attack them on their own chosen ground. Even now, he says, they can hardly credit their spies, or their eyes, and it ought to be easy enough to make them think all this is a blind, and that we are really going to Smyrna or Adramiti. They are fond of saying, "If the English are fools enough to enter our mouth we only have to close it." Enver especially brags he will make very short work with us if we set foot so near to the heart of his Empire, and gives it out that the whole of us will be marching through the streets of Constantinople, not as conquerors, but as prisoners, within a week from the date of our making the attempt. All the same, despite this bragging, the Turks realise that if we were to get the Fleet through the Narrows; or, if it were to force its own way through whilst we absorb the attention of their mobile guns, the game would be up. So they are straining every nerve to be ready for anything. The moral of all these rather contradictory remarks is just what I have said time and again since South Africa. The fact that war has become a highly scientific business should not blind us to the other fact that its roots still draw their nutriment from primitive feelings and methods; the feelings and methods of boy scouts and Red Indians. It is a huge handicap to us here that our great men keep all their tricks for their political friends and have none to spare for their natural enemies. There has been very little attempt to disguise our aims in England, and Maxwell and McMahon in Egypt have allowed their Press to report every arrival of French and British troops, and to announce openly that we are about to attack at Gallipoli. I have protested and reported the matter to K. but nothing in the strategic sphere can be done now although, in the tactical sphere, we have several deceptions ready for them.

Colonel Napier, Military Attache at Sofia, and Braithwaite came in after these pseudo-secrets had been discussed and joined in the conversation.

I doubt whether either Fitzmaurice or Napier have solid information as to what is in front of us, and their yarns about Balkan politics are neither here nor there. John Bull is quite out of his depth in the defiles of the Balkans. With just so much pull over the bulk of my compatriots as has been given me by my having spent a little time with their Armies, I may say that the Balkan nations loathe and mistrust one another to so great a degree that it is sheer waste of time to think of roping them all in on our side, as Fitzmaurice and Napier seem to propose. We may get Greece to join us, and Russia may get Roumania to join her--_if we win here_--but then we make an enemy of Bulgaria, and _vice versa_. If they will unearth my 1909 report at the War Office they will see that, at that time, one Bulgarian Battalion of Infantry was worth two Battalions of Roumanian Infantry--which may be a help to them in making their choice. The Balkan problem is so intricate that it must be simply handled. The simple thing is to pay your money and pick the best card, knowing you can't have a full hand. So let us have no more beating about the bush and may we be inspired to make use of the big boom this Expedition has given to Great Britain in the Balkans to pick out a partner straightway.

Birdie came later and we took stock together of ways and means. We see eye to eye now on every point. Just before lunch we heard the transport _Manitou_ had been attacked by a Turkish torpedo boat from Smyrna. The first wireless came in saying the enemy had made a bad shot and only a few men had been drowned lowering the boats. Admiral Rosy Wemyss and Hope, the Flag-Captain, of the Q.E. were my guests and naturally they were greatly perturbed. Late in the evening we heard that the Turkish T.B. had been chased by our destroyers and had run ash.o.r.e on a Greek Island where she was destroyed (international laws notwithstanding) by our landing parties.

At 7.30 p.m. Hunter-Weston came along and I had the best part of an hour with him.

_17th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos._ Hunter-Weston came over early to finish off business left undone last night. Admiral Wemyss also took part in our discussions over the landing. Picture puzzles are child's play compared with this game of working an unheard of number of craft to and fro, in and out, of little bits of beaches. At mid-day the _Manitou_ steamed into harbour and Colonel Peel, Commander of the troops, came on board and reported fully to me about the attack by the Turkish torpedo boat. The Turks seem to have behaved quite decently giving our men time to get into their boats and steaming some distance off whilst they did so. During the interval the Turks must have got wind of British wars.h.i.+ps, for they rushed back in a great hurry and fired torpedoes at so short a range that they pa.s.sed under the s.h.i.+p. Very exciting, we were told, watching them dart beneath the keel through the crystal clear water. I can well believe it.