Mr. Asquith nest insisted -that no - blame attached to him for
nob having called the War Council together between March 9th and May 14th, 1915. He complained that, in spite of the censure passed upon him by the words of the Report, he was never asks I any questions on this point by the Commission, and therefore was given no chance to make the explanation which he gave the House. Briefly, that explanation was that in the period when the War Council did not meet there were thirteen meetings of the,Cabinet at which Ministerial members of the War Council were always present, and that at eleven out of those thirteen meetings the Dardanelles operations were brought up for report. and were the subject of long and careful discussion. We need not dwell upon Mr. Asquith's claim that the Dardanelles expedition did its work, and that it kept at least three hundred thousand Turks immobile, destroyed the flower of the Turkish Army, and laid the foundatioua for the successes which we are witnessing to-day in Egypt, Mesopo- tamia, and Persia, for we do not understand the Report of the Commissioners to challenge such a claim.
Previous page
