Volume II Part 3 (1/2)
”It may interest you to know the Cabinet has entrusted the superintendence of the Dardanelles business to a co cohly understand the extreme difficulty of your task and the special conditions of the problem in front of you and the Admiral All we ask from you is complete confidence and the exact truth We are not babes and we can digest strongunpleasant concealed from us, nor do ant you ever to swerve one hair's breadth fro the case before us, certainly never on the pleasant side; if you ever swerve pray do so on the unpleasant side If you want more ammunition say so”
”Could you eat a bun,in at the shop”Could I eat ten thousand bbuns and the baker who baked them?” So the dear little felloered If I want more ammunition indeed? If ? I fear the ”co cohtenus well, all evidently completely bamboozled ”If you want more ammunition, say so!” Anyway, my friend means me well but my path is perfectly clear; I have only one Chief--K--and I correspond with no one but him, or his Staff, whether on the subject of a else
As to the letter, I know it is entirely kind, genuine and inspired by the one idea of helping ot to say no thank you in sorateful for your reassuring re confidence in my humble self For my part I have confidence in the _moral_ of reat and splendid assets a kaleidoscope of the factors and possibilities of war
”I a about cabling home the exact truth Is there any occasion on which I have failed to do so? I should be very sorry indeed to think I had consciously or unconsciously misled anyone by my cables There is always, of course, the broad spirit of a cable which depends on the teed with hope or it has been dictated by one who fears the worst If you iven to et another General”
_30th July, 1915_ Gascoigne of ”Q” branch lunched On getting news of the decisive victory on the Euphrates I caused a _feu de joie_ to be fired precisely at 5 pm by all the troops on the Peninsula At the appointed hour I walked up the cliff's edge whence I clearly heard the roll of fire The question of whether musketry sounds will carry so far is settled Evidently the Turks have taken up the challenge for it was quite a long ti died away In the cool of the evening took a walk Commandant Bertier and la Borde dined
Stopford, now co at helles, has endorsed a report fro that out of a draft of 45 recruits just come from home three have been cast as totally unfit and nine as perh blindness Stopford says that he can't understand this, as the second line Battalion, froood soldiers and tall fellows quite lately when they were under his coland Have cabled the facts ho the result of the Admiralty's attitude towards their own Naval Division now Winston has departed:--
”(No MF 505) Froth of the Marine Brigade is now reduced to 50 officers and 1,890 rank and file In addition, only five battalions, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Battalions, are now re in the Division, as the Anson Battalion has been withdrawn for special work in connection with the forthco operations Moreover, 300 men, stokers, from this division have been handed over to the Navy for work in auxiliary vessels, see ram No MFA 1377, of 11th July I have consequently decided to reduce the division to eight battalions and to reorganize it into two brigades as a teive me any idea when the reinforcements for this division are likely to be despatched and when they ain at its strength of 12 battalions, and do not want to lose it, as it contains a very valuable war-trained nucleus, but unless it is brought under army administration, it does not appear likely that it can be maintained”
_31st July, 1915 I to clearfor Mitylene to see the new Irish Division The grand arenius credited us appear to have served their purpose At our challenge they have now taken to their heels like Falstaff's eleven rogues in buckra this time as ”I” and not as ”We,”) says, ”it is not worth while trying to reconcile numbers by cable and it is difficult to h, that a slice of solid stuff is sandwiched into this cable--we are to get some 45 shell _via_ Marseilles; HE we hope: also, two batteries of 45 howitzers: also that the AG has been trying hard to feed the 29th Division The Territorials are the people who are being allowed to go to pot--not a word of hope even, and before the eyes of everyone
_1st August, 1915 I No time to write Sent two cables, copies attached The first to the War Office, in answer to one from the AG wherein he plumes himself upon the completeness of the 29th Division That completeness, alas, is only so relatively; ie, in co condition of the Territorial Divisions:--
”We are deeply grateful to you for the drafts you have despatched for the XXIXth Division as the fighting existence of that fine fored by their timely arrival, but I fear that you are very wide of the mark in your assumption that these drafts have completed the Division
”As I have ventured to point out incessantly since e numbers of casualties must occur between the deth of the sea voyage It was for this very plain reason that it was doubly necessary to have here the 10 per centto France
We must always be considerably under establishin
”I fully realize, in saying this, that it est, but I feel bound to let you know the only possible terms on which any unit in this force can ever be up to establish 1,700 drafts coth of the XXIXth Division is 219 officers and 8,424 other ranks”
The second cable is to K The War Office Army has melted into thin air and it only remains to express my heartfelt thanks for the real Army:--
”With reference to your No 6645 Veryfor us that man can do The shi+p will probably not reach me in time but since I know that the ammunition is actually _en route_ for me, and that it will (DV) arrive, I need not husband e have, but can fire freely if I see great results thus obtainable The Turk, at any rate, where he knows that he is fighting for Constantinople, is a stubborn fighter, and the difficulty is not soof the me will come in the nick of tiust, as I telegraphed to the Quartermaster-General yesterday Many thanks for the two batteries of 45-inch howitzers, they are worth their weight in gold to us”
At 5 pm ee Lloyd of the General Staff and young Brodrick At 6 pust, 1915 HMS ”Chatham,” Mitylene_ We opened Mitylene Harbour at 530 am So narroas the entrance, and so hidden, that at first it looked as if the _Chathaunsbushes on either side of the channel; then, as we sailed out over a bay like a big turquoise, I felt as though ere at peace with all e to the hoiant wars But only for a moment!
After early breakfast, where I met Captain Grant of HMS _Canopus_, left in a steaadier-General Hill