A British Sailor

WE are here given the memories of a conspicuous seaman, possessing all the great qualities that we like to associate with Nelson's genius. One may admire him forhis seamanship, his • intuitive judgement in strategy, his foresight. into the influence of strategy upon polities. But, personally, I admire him most for his moral courage and tenacity of purpose.

When towards the end of 1915 he went to London to press his high-spirited idea of forcing the Dardanelles with the Fleet even after the collapse of the great land-attack in: August, Lord Kitchener at the War Office described him as " a very

pertinacious young man." He was pertinacious as speaking for the honour of the Navy and the certainty, as he believed, of shortening the War by at least two years, thus saving the lives of millions of young men on both sides in the conflict.

One notices the same high quality throughout the book, and it was combined with a moral courage. that enabled him to maintain his view in strong opposition to authorities in whose hands his future career lay. It was never hard to irritate Lord Fisher, but early in this story Commodore Keyes succeeded in irritating the great First Sea Lord with a success almost ruinous to his own prospects.

The public interest begins with his appointment as Inspector Captain of Submarines in 1910, about the time when the Navy was definitely preparing for the coining struggle with the Grinan Fleet. Submarines .were then a comparatively unknown power, - and with expert knowledge Sir Roger gives the 'history -of their growth in importance. It was a knowledge that 'served him well in the Dardanelles, and he gives a special chapter -to the adventurous enterprises of the submarines which forced their way • up the Straits under the mines and through the thick wire nets supposed.to. make the passage impassable. --He praises as they well deserved all the' skill, resource, and amazing courage of such. captains of submarines as Nesmith, Boyle, Stocks, Pirie, and the. splendid exploit of Doyley Hughes, who wa& landed to blow up a viaduct on the Baghdad railyeay by the Gulf of Ismid. Admir- able es these actions were, there is something grim about the brief account of an exploit by Boyle's '.E• : .

" The second transport was a big vessel with two funnels,. twice

the size of any other ship he saw in Marmora, he thought it must have carried quite 2,000 troops ; there was a terrific ex-Rlosien wive the torpedo struck, and he saw men and debris- thrown into:the sea. We know now that all four vessels sank, and that the latter was an old White Star liner, carrying a battery of artillery and 6,000 troor., of whom not one soul was saved."

TO drown all at once 6,000 innocent Turkish peasants who had lately cared only for cultivating their little farms in Anatolia may seem abhorrent to the layman, but killing innocent people is the means in every war.

Acting as Chief of Staff to Admirals Carden, De Robeck, and Wemyss in turn, the author was present at the whole of the fine but tragic Dardanelles campaign from the bombard-

went of the outer forts in. February. He " never doubted that our race could be relied upon to carry through anything we undertook :

" This belief sustained me in the blackest hours—until December, 1915, when it was shattered by a shameful decision, for which poli- ticians cannot alone be held responsible, in view of the conflicting advice they received from soldiers and sailors."

To straighten out that conflicting advice and bring it down upon his own side was his repeated endeavour up to the Very

end. He began directly after the attempt of March 18th, when the Fleet was withdrawn owing to the loss of four ships, chiefly by mines. He maintained at once that the Turks were already beaten and could not have carried on the defence

if the Fleet had pressed forward a few days later. We knoW now from Turkish and German sources that he was perfectly right, but when he urged the authorities on the spot and at home to put the Navy to its proper use, though he persuaded

many for a time, even Mr. Balfour and Lord Kitchener among others, the final decision always went against. him, 'and he suffered the unhappiness of one who has no power to carry

out his will. I cannot do better than quote' his own words near the beginning of the book :

"I wish to place on record that I had no doubt then, and have none now—and nothing will ever shake my opinion—that from the 4th April, 1915, onwards, the Fleet could have forced the Straits, and with losses trifling in comparison with those the Army suffered, could have entered the Masora with sufficient force to destroy the Turco-German fleet. This operation would have cut the communi- cations—which were sea-borne--of any Turkish armies either in tallipoli or on the Asiatic side, and would have led immediately to a victory decisive upon the whole course of the war."

With this well-founded belief in his heart, the sailor was compelled from the Queen Elizabeth' impotently to witness the terrible landings, as at V Beach. " It was a ghastly

sight to watch from a position of absolute safety," he writes, " The foreshore was strewn with dead bodies and wreckage of stranded boats. - The sea was whipped up by bullets.

Between the 'River Clyde' and the shore we could see men struggling up to their shoulders in the sea ; others lying under the shelter of a ridge in the sand to move from which meant certain death from machine-guns, which could not be located from the covering ships." And a little later he continues : I can think of nothing more detestable than to watch our troops being destroyed by rifle and machine-gun fire, which, in spite of our great armament, we were powerless to silence."

From the ships also he was compelled to witness the distant fighting at Anzac and the lamentable inertia at Suvla during the terrible four days of August 6th to 10th. He quotes a long passage from Colonel Allanson's War diary describing the gallant advance of his 6th Gurkhas and some British 'companies over the summit of the range of cliffs at Hill Q, and he finally clears the Navy of the charge of having fired the four big shells that drove the party back when they were pursuing the Turks down the reverse slope. For naval guns, with their direct fire, could not have pitched shells over the summit to fall on a slope beyond, and, after working out the problem on the spot with the guidance of the official

orders, I have not doubted that the disastrous shells were fired by our battery of howitzers upon the shore. But I ' think he goes too far in saying that Colonel Malone, the

New Zealand hero of. Quinn's Post, who was killed on the summit of Chunuk Bair, secured his position there ; for I was never able to advance up that steep hillside beyond the " Apex," which stood about two hundred yards, I suppose,

beloW the real summit..

As As to Mr. Winston Churchill, who has been so often blamed

as the originator of the disastrous campaign, I have always, as a niere 'layman,' regarded- his idea as the finest strategic conception of the War, and I am glad to have the Admiral's

expert support :

" Pers■Mally I think Winston Churchill's name will always be honoured in history for his great strategic effort, long after his' critics aro forgotten, and I believe that this view is accepted now by ell who know the facts I have recorded."

Certainly of all the records of that dramatic campaign none - has appeared more vital or more illuminating than this, and it also shows us the pertinacious spirit of the English