• • Gallipoli Revelations

The Uncensored Dardanelles. By E. Ashmead-Bartlett: (Hutchinson. 21s. net.)

Mn. AsmarEAD-BARTLErr has written a Very moving accot.nt, of what he saw in the Dardanelles campaign. He tells Ink that he has not attempted to write a history ; he has in substance given us the diary which he kept regularly in spite; of enormous difficulties, and what he saw was, of course, not: everything. An official history of the campaign has yet to:: appear, but in the meantime the judicious reader will do well; to correct the impressions which Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett wilF leave 'on his mind by reading the admirably fair-minded! aceount of the Campaign written by Mr. H. W. Nevinson., Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett's diary, however, is likely to endure if only because of its high quality of readableness and because it represents in an extreme form all that the " Opposition "1 has to say against the conception and conduct of the campaign.: There are kyr thin. gs easier than to show after the- vent why a -.campaign has failed. That is why military critics are more likely to serve. the truth if they remember that the leaders on one side are necessarily ignorant of the intentions; of the other side. Wellington said that he had spent his life.: in trying to guess what was in the other fellow's mind, and old Turenne said that if you showed him a general who had made 7 no mistakes you would show him a man who had seen little of war. It is true that Mr._Ashmead-Bartlett's words of woe::

were written, not ,afterwards, but while the campaign. was

-going on, and in many cases they were prophecies which were fulfilled, but we remain quite unconvinced in spite of hia positive and even terrific emphasis that the plan of campaign

Which he himself would have substituted for the one that failed would have had any, better success.

He attributes disaster to three causes: (1) The absence of Is real General Staff—the General Staff which was in existence it the beginning of the War was, of course, broken up in order that its members might serve in France. (2) The confused direction of the campaign on the spot. (3) The refusal to Send the troops in the first place to occupy the Bulair line Instead of the southern end of the peninsula. He apparently rates (8) a long way above the other two causes in importance. A glance at the map shows the geographical attractiveness of what Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett wanted. At Bulair there is a very narrow neck of land, and if this had been seized and firmly held all the troops in the peninsula to the south—so the argument runs—would have been virtually immobilized and eventually starved. The author, however, seems to forget that very obvious strategy does not escape the attention of even the most stilted brain. The possibility of attacking

at Bulair was, of course, considered, and we may believe Very seriously considered. As a matter of fact, the study of

the Bulair line goes back a considerable way in our military history. When Lord Raglan was concentrating his forces for the Crimean War he chose Gallipoli as his headquarters, and presumably there was then at least an examination of the peninsula by Staff officers. In the Russo-Turkish War of

877 Britain, though neutral, was extremely apprehensive that the Russians might take Constantinople, and there was in alarmed study of the military possibilities of Gallipoli.

Thenceforward the British War Office was well aware that a seizure of Bulair would be attended by dangers so many and so great that the superficial attractiveness of the scheme disappeared.

. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett admits that naval advice was

-against the Bulair scheme, but he does not by any means do justice to the formidable reasons behind the advice. He

lays

"I am convinced that the only mad to victory was to seize the ground north of Bulair, to cut off all communications between Gallipoli and Thrace and to starve the Turkish armies into surrender with the co-operation of our indomitable submarines, which, as it was, succeeded in making a clean sweep of all Turkish shipping in the tiarinora. The 'moral effect of closing,. or capturing, the lines of Bulair, would have been stupendous, and would have forced the Turks to leave their carefully prepared positions in the south, and meet us on ground of our own choosing. Anyone who takes the trouble to read Liman Von Sanders' book, Cinq Ana de Turquis, will find ample confirmation for the truth of this statement. From first to last his chief fear was a successful landing north of Bulair, and the forcing of those famous lines. On each critical occasion he was obliged to keep his reserves at Bulair until absolutely certain that all fear of a landing had passed. Sir Ian Hamilton &inns that the Navy raised objections to a landing at Enos or Bulair. Even if there were local difficulties to be surmounted, the advantages were so obvious and so overwhelming that surely a slight increase in our lines of communications should not have been allowed to stand in the way of gaining a decisive victory."

What the Navy felt was that the Turks in the peninsula touth of Bulair could have been supplied fairly easily from the coast of Asia Armor. Against this Mr. Ashmead- Bartlett places the heroic British submarines. But what could submarines, effective though they were against larger ships, have done against innumerable small craft drawing very little water ? It is a very short distance across the Straits. Raids by submarines through the Straits are very different from the job of keeping the Straits permanently clear of enemy boats—and all this under the fire of guns from the shore. And where would the British naval base have been placed to support the troops at Bulair? Gallipoli is subject to sudden and violent storms and the ships, to be of much use, would have had to be fairly near in. But it is well known that Enos Bay is extremely shoal.

- Altogether, although the attempts to seize the commanding height of Achi Baba failed, the plan on which Sir Ian Hamilton relied seems to us to have been better than Mr. Ashrnead- Bartlett's alternative. This is not to excuse the muddles of the ghastly campaign, but it may at least be said that the

advance from the Suvla Bay was theoretically sound and that the margin between disappointment and triumph was not actually very -wide. Mr. Ashmea&Bartlett mentions that Lord Kitchener was in favour of a landing at Bulair, and se he was—as,, a desperate remedy--on November 3rd, 1915, but, after a personal inspection of-the peninsula, be withdrew that opinion. This is clear from his report to the Prime Minister on November 15th.