In Constantinople the naval attacks of February had created the dismay natural to a crowded population threatened with destruction. Preparations were hurriedly made for removing the Government to Eski Chehir in Asia, or even to Konia. In spite of Enver’s dominance, the Committee was charged with bringing ruin on the land, and the German Ambassador, Baron von Wangenheim, feared a separate peace. Ahmed Riza, the honourable visionary, aging survivor of the Parisian Young Turks whose revolution seven years before inspired all Europeans but the Governments with enthusiasm, now stole about the streets honoured but shunned. In his palace on the Bosphorus, the Sultan, Mehmed V., for some inscrutable reason called El Ghazi (the Hero), maundered with imbecility. Removed in March from his palace-prison of Beyler-bey on the Bosphorus to the ancient city of Magnesia, near Smyrna, the “Red Sultan,” Abdul Hamid, surrounded by ministering daughters, beguiled an abstemious and peaceful old age by watching the progress of Christianity with sardonic appreciation.105

The failure of the naval attempt to force the Narrows in March restored the city’s confidence. People felt that, since the British Navy failed, the Dardanelles indeed formed an impregnable pass. Enver and Liman von Sanders regained power, if not popularity. The German bureaucracy, organising every department with efficient despotism, justified the satiric compliment which cried, “Deutschland, Deutschland über Allah!” During the subsequent five weeks of our silence it was believed that the British Government admitted failure and had abandoned the campaign. The distant sound of Russian ships bombarding the Black Sea forts at the entrance to the Bosphorus was listened to periodically with the indifference of custom. When news of the landings began to filter through, decisive Turkish victories over France and England were proclaimed. In Asia and on the Peninsula the enemy, it was said, had been repulsed with incredible loss. If any still clung to the shores of Islam, in a day or two they would be driven into the water. The anxious citizens had Enver’s word for that.

Enver himself was hurrying reinforcements to the front. Some went by the Bulair road, though it was exposed to possible fire from British warships in the Gulf of Xeros. The majority were transported down the Sea of Marmora to Gallipoli or Maidos. But within a few days of the landings, this route was rendered equally dangerous by the skill and gallantry of our submarines, two of which—E14 under Lieutenant-Commander Edward Courtney Boyle and E11 under Lieutenant-Commander Eric Naismith—explored their way under the minefields of the strait, entered the Marmora and played havoc among Turkish transports and gunboats. E14 sank two gunboats and one transport with troops. E11 was even more successful, sinking two transports, one gunboat, one communication ship, and three store ships, and driving another store ship ashore. It created alarm in the city by emerging close to the quays, and on its return down the strait it stopped and backed to torpedo another transport.106 After this, most reinforcements were sent either through Muradhi (the nearest station to Rodosto), risking the Bulair road, or by ships hugging the Asiatic coast by night to the ferry at the Narrows, both routes long and arduous. Some also went by rail to Smyrna and thence by rail to Panderma on the Marmora before being embarked. In early May, Enver admitted that the Turkish losses already amounted to 45,000, and all Turkish towns, even to the distance of Kirk Kilisse, were crammed with wounded. Liman, in command at the front, called for 50,000 reinforcements, and about 30,000, chiefly brought in from Adrianople and Smyrna, were actually sent. Within a few weeks, divisions were also withdrawn from Syria for the same destination. For Turkish troops, the equipment was unusually good—arms, guns, and other stores passing freely through Bulgaria, or coming from the Roumanian port of Constanza down the Black Sea, where the Russian patrols remained torpid or unfortunate. For Turkish troops, the commissariat was also sufficient, the disaster of Lula Burgas having taught the authorities that even Turks cannot fight beyond a certain degree of starvation.107

Before the Turkish reinforcements could consolidate a new position across the southern slopes of Achi Baba, and convert it into an impenetrable maze of trench and wire, it was essential for Sir Ian to continue striking at their front. Only so could the pressure upon the beaches be relieved, and the continuous danger from dropping shells to some small extent be reduced; and only so could the Turks be interrupted in their schemes for driving us into the sea. So heavy had been the losses of the 29th Division that the new Lancashire Fusilier Territorials and the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade were added to the 87th and 88th Brigades so as to make up the Division, the 86th being now so much reduced in numbers that it was temporarily divided between the other two brigades. Two brigades (the 2nd Australian (Victoria) and the New Zealand Infantry) were withdrawn from Anzac and formed into a composite division in reserve with the Drake and Plymouth Battalions, R.N.D. Two battalions of the 2nd Naval Brigade, R.N.D. (Howe and Hood), were sent to reinforce the French Division on the right.

On May 6, when the attempt to push forward began, Sir Ian could count only on about 33,000 rifles, of which only 5000 were British and Irish Regulars. This total included about 8000 French troops; but of these at least 5000 were Africans. The remainder of his army consisted, as we have seen, of Lancashire Territorials, Anzacs (both excellent), and the Royal Naval Division, that finely tempered, though partially trained, body, made up partly of public-school men, but chiefly of northern and west of England miners, R.F.R. stokers and marines, whose heavy losses were due rather to devotion and courage than to lack of skill. Against them were arrayed at least 40,000 regular Turkish troops (Nizam), skilfully disposed in a system of trenches and redoubts designed by German officers and held with Turkish tenacity. As to guns, the French at this time had twenty-four of their “75’s,” together with five or six howitzers, and they never ran short of ammunition. The British had something over fifty 18-pounders, a few old and inaccurate howitzers, very few H.E. shells, and other ammunition always so short that a bombardment in preparation for attack had to be rigorously limited for fear of drawing on the small reserve. The Turkish guns in concealed positions on Achi Baba and its slopes, or behind its shelter, were estimated at about a hundred. In addition, the Turks had large guns and howitzers on the Asiatic side, the most dangerous being hidden between the Trojan plain and Erenkeui village. From time to time they exploded “Black Marias,” as the soldiers called the 9·2 and 11-inch shells, among the French depôts on V Beach and among the British signalling stations and stores on Lancashire Landing. Except beneath the cliffs on the Xeros coast, no point upon the southern Peninsula was secure from fire.

The battle lasted three days (May 6 to 8 inclusive). The reorganised 29th Division began the attack on the left, the French being on the right, the Plymouth and Drake Battalions keeping the two sections in touch from the centre. At 11 a.m. the advance was prepared by a brief bombardment, the French batteries as usual expending far the greater number of shells, and firing with their customary method and precision. The 87th Brigade and Lancashire Fusiliers (Territorials) on the British left then moved along the flat and open ground between the Gully Ravine (Saghir Dere) and the sea. Part also penetrated up the gully itself, which swarmed with Turkish snipers, and at the farther end was commanded by machine-guns. On their right, the 88th Brigade with the Indians attempted to conform to the advance, fighting for every yard over ground affording cover to the enemy in unsuspected pits and dry ravines, but especially in a scattered wood of firs, which grew along the edge of a downward slope near the centre. Against this wood, company after company of the 88th Brigade was led in vain. Hidden machine-guns also checked the progress of the R.N.D. battalions. On the right the French threw forward a swarm of Senegalese in open order. They struggled almost to the crest overlooking Kereves Dere, but were there encountered by a strong redoubt. The French troops advanced through the Senegalese as they came back, but made no further progress. All the R.N.D. battalions suffered heavy loss.108 The fighting developed into a struggle of scattered groups to push forward. The naval guns continued a heavy bombardment, but so deep and narrow were the Turkish trenches that naval shells had little but moral effect, and moral effect rapidly diminishes. By middle afternoon (4.30) it became evident that the wearied and harassed men could go no farther, and the order was given to dig in, keeping a fairly connected line. By sheer hard “hammering,” between 200 and 300 yards had been gained, but no more, and the main Turkish defences were still far ahead.

In the night, the Turks rushed upon the French lines with the bayonet, but the French lines held. Next morning at ten o’clock our attack was resumed. After a short but violent bombardment, the Lancashire Fusiliers attempted to push forward again upon the extreme left so as to clear the Gully Ravine, about half-way between Gully Beach and Y Beach, but were stopped by a redoubt and machine-guns upon the ridge overlooking the sea. On their right, in the difficult ground of scrub and donga between the Gully Ravine and the Krithia Nullah, the 88th Brigade struggled to advance the line, and for a time the 5th Royal Scots obtained a footing in the savagely disputed fir wood. Here they discovered snipers perched on wooden platforms among the branches; and here, as in other places during the campaign, Turks had cleverly “camouflaged” themselves with green paint and boughs of trees till they looked like moving or stationary bushes, though hitherto the process of “camouflage” had not been generally practised. The Inniskilling Fusiliers of the 87th Brigade came up to the support of the Scots, but soon after 1 p.m. a violent Turkish counter-attack recaptured the firs. The French and Naval Brigade had made little progress, and in the early afternoon the battle paused. But it was impossible to lose the advantage of attack and leave the initiative to an enemy only eager to rush forward and chase the Allies back to slaughter upon the beaches. Accordingly, just before five o’clock, after another violent bombardment, especially from the French guns, Sir Ian ordered a general advance of the whole line. French, British, and Irish (the Dublins and Munsters having been united into the “Dubsters”) all rose visibly together, and charged forward with the bayonet. The firs were again taken and held. The line swept over the first Turkish trenches; considerable ground was gained, in places as much as 400 yards. The success was general, except on the extreme left. Here the original failure to hold Y Beach at the first landing was now bitterly felt, for in that direction the Lancashire Fusiliers found it impossible to advance. Indeed, their advance appears to have been counter-ordered at the last moment, perhaps in the belief that the position was too difficult to storm. For a time, on the right also, the situation was serious. Such a storm of shrapnel met the French advance that African fugitives in great numbers came sweeping down through the Naval Brigade, and spread a confusion only checked by the advance of the French reserves.109

The battle had now lasted without intermission for two days, and the nights brought little rest. The Regular troops had been fighting close upon a fortnight without relief. More than half their comrades were killed, wounded, or prisoners; more than half their officers gone. The relics of battalions were merged together; one whole brigade had disappeared. The surface of the hollow plain was strewn with dead, whom there was hardly time to bury; and before the lines, dead and wounded lay together in places which no one could reach and live. The bare sand, the flowering heaths, the groves of olive and fir were splashed with patches of sticky blood. The sinister smell of death pervaded all. On windless days the heat was severe, and a slight breeze from the north stirred up dust storms which increased with the increasing traffic, blinding the eyes, choking the throat, and streaming far out to sea in yellow clouds. Perpetually exposed to fire, no matter where they were placed, the men longed for sleep, shade, an interval of security, and drink of any kind. Short as is the time allowed for a soldier’s grief, yet grief for the loss of friends was there, and in the heart of each lurked the knowledge that in another day or another minute he might be as they.110

Though well aware of loss and exhaustion, Sir Ian resolved to make another call upon his troops for the following day. A new French Division had been long but indecisively promised, and it was gradually arriving during these three days.111 General Bailloud was in command, a bald-headed veteran of seventy, very small, active, and alert, endowed with an irrepressible sense of comedy, which he gaily diffused among men and officers alike. One of his brigades was at once sent forward to strengthen the French position. On the British section, the Lancashire Fusiliers and the Indian Brigade were withdrawn into reserve; the 87th Brigade was left to struggle on the terribly exposed and narrow height between the Gully Ravine and the sea; the New Zealanders were ordered to pass through the 88th Brigade and advance directly upon Krithia; the Australians remained temporarily on their right in reserve, and, as before, R.N.D. battalions formed the connecting link with the French on both sides of the main Krithia road.

Sir Ian and the Headquarter Staff had pitched camp in a depression of the ground above Cape Tekke, too close to the Divisional Headquarters, but the limited space allowed no choice. Before the neighbouring high ground above W Beach, beside the cemetery, the scene of battle lay openly extended, and the movements of each section could be watched from hour to hour, except when advancing lines disappeared for a while into dongas, or when the smoke and upheaval of bursting shells obscured the view with black or yellow clouds. Otherwise, all was visible except the enemy, and, from the vacant appearance of the ground before them, it would have seemed possible for the army to advance in uninterrupted lines across the gently rising slopes to Krithia or the truncated pyramid of Achi Baba itself.

At 10.15 on May 8, the customary bombardment from sea and land began, and was received with the customary silence. At 10.30 the infantry moved, and at once the roar of rifles and machine-guns arose from the Turkish trenches, while overhead the Turkish shrapnel burst incessantly. The 87th Brigade attempted to push forward, but could hardly advance a hundred yards, the South Wales Borderers losing heavily. Among the scattered trees and rugged ravines on the right of the gully, the New Zealanders, under Brigadier-General F. E. Johnston, advanced by short rushes for nearly 300 yards, but, exposed to machine-guns on both flanks, were forced to dig in soon after midday.112 Shortly before, General Paris, R.N.D., commanding the composite division, ordered the Australians to advance into the centre of the attacking line upon the New Zealanders’ right.113 They were under command of Brigadier-General J. W. M‘Cay, who, with his Brigade-Major, Major Cass, went up into the firing line with his battalions, recklessly exposing himself to the heaviest fire until evening, when he was wounded, as Major Cass had twice been at an earlier stage.

The Australians advanced to a slight hollow in the ground, giving some amount of cover. Here it seemed likely they would bivouac, for during the early afternoon an ominous pause ensued. But Sir Ian had determined upon one more effort to secure victory by movement. At 5.15 all the battleships and cruisers, all the French “75’s,” and such heavy guns as we possessed, opened a tremendous bombardment. The bursting shells concealed the slopes of Achi Baba on both sides. Sudden volcanoes spouted rock and earth in dark cones. The orange of the lyddite curled over the enemy’s trenches. It seemed impossible for human beings to survive that quarter of an hour. At 5.30 all guns ceased like one, and with bayonets fixed and rifles at the slope, the whole line again moved forward. The brunt of the fighting now fell to the Australians. Two battalions in front and two in support, they walked or ran in “rushes” of 50 or 60 yards on about 1000 yards of front to the left of the Krithia road. The ground was open, and their appearance was at once greeted by the roar of rifles, machine-guns and field-guns, which the bombardment had again utterly failed to silence. The Australians, though heavily laden with packs, shovels, picks, and entrenching tools, and exposed to intense fire, pressed on, rush after rush, their Brigadier directing and encouraging by waving a stick in front. Without a sight of their deadly enemy, they advanced over 800 yards, the support battalions joining up into the bayonet line. They swept across a long Turkish trench. They shot those who ran, and bayoneted those who stayed. They came within half a mile of the eastern approaches to Krithia itself. Seldom in this war has so reckless and irresistible an advance been recorded. None the less, after an addition of a quarter of a mile beyond our original lines, it was checked. Suddenly upon the right Major Cass, wounded in both shoulders, had discovered a yawning gap of 300 yards, into which groups of Turks were pouring down a gully to harass the Australian line on flank and rear.114

The French, though late, had advanced gallantly to the attack, drums beating, bugles blowing, as in a Napoleonic battle. The French white troops in good order fought their way about 300 yards farther along the Kereves Ridge, capturing the much-disputed redoubt. But the gap was left. The Naval Brigade were delayed in filling it, and in the falling darkness the whole line, exhausted and reduced, had barely life left in them to dig trenches for the night. An average advance of 500 yards had been accomplished.

Next day (May 9) Sir Ian issued the following special order to the Australians and to the British troops, which had now become the VIIIth Army Corps:

In spite of a heavy counter-attack against the French position on the night of the 9th-10th, comparative quiet prevailed during the next two or three days. But at Helles, even on the quietest days, shell-fire never ceased, and, to say nothing of the V and W Beaches, the troops withdrawn from the firing line to rest were continually exposed to danger. For such rest, it was time to withdraw the 29th Division, now that the East Lancashires (42nd) could take its place. The Division had lost about 11,000 men and 400 officers. The relics of those unyielding battalions began to come back on the 11th. That night and next day it rained heavily for the first time, but the over-wearied men sank down into mud or pools of water, indifferent to everything but sleep. In their honour, so well deserved, Sir Ian issued a second special order, dated May 12:

Only five days’ rest could be allowed. Immediately before the withdrawal began, the 29th Indian Brigade, as though to prove themselves worthy of the Division to which they were now attached, carried through a dashing adventure, suitable to the character of the men. The design was due to Sir Herbert Cox, commanding the brigade, and the object was to capture the high cliff or “bluff” overlooking the ravine of Y Beach on the farther side. It has been seen how greatly the failure to hold this position at the first landing had impeded the advance of our left wing. Upon the bluff, the Turks had constructed a formidable redoubt, whence machine-guns and rifles rendered movement along the west side of the Gully Ravine impossible. On the night of the 10th-11th, the scouts of the 6th Gurkhas (Lieut.-Colonel the Honourable C. G. Bruce) scrambled along the shore to the foot of the cliff, and climbed right up the precipitous face. On the summit they were met by heavy fire, and as a surprise the attempt failed. But on the evening of the next day but one (the 12th), the Manchester Brigade (one of those Territorial Corps fit to rank with veteran Regulars) made a feint upon the position from our right, assisted by the 29th Division’s artillery and the guns of the Dublin and Talbot from the sea. While the attention of the Turks was thus occupied, a double-company of Gurkhas again crawled up the cliff, and rushed the redoubt with a sudden charge. During the night and at early morning, they were supported by three Gurkha reinforcements of double-companies, the entrenchment was rapidly completed, and the position permanently held. It was afterwards always known as “Gurkha Bluff,” and its value for the protection of our extreme left was incalculable.

It had now become evident that victory by open movement upon the surface could scarcely be hoped for. As in France and Flanders, the two modern instruments of barbed wire and machine-guns had so strengthened the power of defence that open assault would always cost many lives, and was rendered impossible without a “barrage” of shells such as the Dardanelles force was incapable of affording. Indeed, the very word “barrage” was then hardly known to British troops. The opposing lines were brought almost to a standstill, and advance became possible only by trench and sap, as in an old-fashioned siege, varied by almost continuous attacks and separate exploits, designed partly to save our own men from the rot of inactivity, but chiefly to prevent the enemy from concentrating his efforts to drive us off the land. The line was, accordingly, organised into four permanent sections from left to right—the 29th Division (with the Indian Brigade), the 42nd Division (one brigade of which, the East Lancashire, was split up to gain experience with the 29th Division),116 the Royal Naval Division, and the French Expeditionary Corps, now counting two divisions. In the middle of May (the 14th) the French Commandant, General d’Amade, a soldier with unusual knowledge of foreign affairs, who knew the Far East well, was French Attaché in the South African War, and served with distinction in Morocco, retired from the Peninsula, having found the prolonged strain too great for nerves impoverished by illness. He was sent on a special mission to Russia, and was succeeded by General Gouraud, a cool, solid, and imperturbable soldier of the best French type, who had won high reputation in the Argonne.

At Anzac, although deprived for a few days (till May 15) of the two brigades withdrawn to Helles, the Australasians continued to strengthen their hold upon the perilous edges of their rough triangle. But in the middle of the month (May 15), just as the two brigades were returning, General Bridges, commanding the 1st Australian Division, was mortally wounded. In crossing the mouth of Shrapnel Valley, where the protecting parapets had not yet been completed, he was struck in the thigh by a sniper hidden somewhere in the bushes beyond Pope’s Hill. His last words on leaving Anzac in a hospital ship were, “Anyhow, I have commanded an Australian Division for nine months.”117 Before Alexandria was reached, he died: a stern, outwardly cold, and lonely man, pitiless to apathy, capable of organisation, and inspiring the confidence always felt in unyielding and unselfish capacity. The command of the 1st Division was at once taken over by Major-General H. B. Walker, a resolute and gallant leader, who had served in the British Army in the Soudan campaigns, the N.-W. Frontier, and South Africa. He was among the most determined opponents of evacuation on the night after the Anzac landing. His headquarters were fixed at the top of the “White Valley,” close to the region afterwards famous as Lone Pine.

On May 19, three days after the loss of their own General, the Australians, together with the rest of Anzac, were called upon to resist the most violent attempt that the Turks ever made to drive them off the cliffs. The enemy had now largely increased their artillery, which included at least one 11-inch gun, some 8-inch, and several 4·7-inch, all well posted and concealed. Liman von Sanders had also brought up forces amounting to 30,000 men, believed to include five fresh regiments, and he took command in person. Directly the moon set on the night of the 18th-19th, a tremendous fire of guns and rifles burst from the surrounding Turkish lines. This often happened at Anzac, and now, as usual, the noise died down after about an hour. But at 3.30, crowds of silent figures were detected in the darkness creeping close up to the centre of the Australian trenches. Directly the sentries fired, masses of the enemy in thick lines came rushing forward, yelling their battle-cry to the Prophet’s God. Though most severe along the ridge between Quinn’s and Courtney’s Posts, the assault extended over the whole front, with great violence at the dangerously exposed apex of the triangle. The assailants came on so thick, the ground to be covered was so narrow—in places only a few yards across between the confronting trenches—that the Anzacs had but to fire point-blank into the half-visible darkness before them, and at every shot an enemy fell. Many Australians mounted the parapet, and, sitting astride upon it, fired continuously, as in an enormous drive of game. Morning broke, the sun rose behind the teaming assailants, machine-guns and rifles mowed them down in rows, and piled them up into barriers and parapets of the dead and scarcely living. Still the peasants of Islam, summoned from quiet villages of Thrace and Asia, unconscious of the cause for which they died, except that it was the cause of Islam—still they came on, shouting their battle-cry. Emptying their rifles into trenches manned with equal constancy, rushing wildly up to the sandbag lines, they scrambled over them, only to die of rifles which scorched their skin, or of bayonets dripping blood.

From 3.30 till nearly 11 the conflict raged; but before the sun was at its height the noise and shouting gradually died away. The great assault was finished, and had failed. In heaps and lines, more than 3000 Turks lay dying or already dead. The defence lost only 100 killed, and about 500 wounded. Not a yard of Anzac had been yielded up. The enemy never again attempted an attack upon that scale.

So appalling had the thin strip of neutral ground now become owing to the ghastly heaps of swollen or shrinking bodies piled upon it, so overpowering was the stink of rotting men, that the Turks, waving white flags and red crescents, requested an armistice for burial. After some naturally suspicious hesitation (for the enemy mustered in thick lines, and fighting was frequently renewed) a Turkish officer was brought blindfold into Anzac Cove, four Australian officers carrying him through the sea round the end of the entanglement beyond Hell Spit. Major-General Braithwaite, Chief of Sir Ian’s Staff, met him at General Birdwood’s headquarters, close beside the beach opposite the chief landing-place, called “Watson’s Pier,” because built by Anzac signallers under Captain Watson. An armistice for May 24 was arranged, and duly carried out. It lasted from early morning till late afternoon, and was attended with the usual ironic circumstances. Within certain limits marked by white flags, Australians freely conversed with Turkish officers who spoke faultless English, and were lavish in politeness and cigarettes. It is said that General Liman von Sanders himself, disguised as a Red Crescent sergeant, mixed undetected with the crowd upon that wet and misty morning.118

It may have been so, nor was there cause for disguise. It was by his authority as Commandant of the 5th Ottoman Army that Lieutenant-Colonel Fahreddin concluded the armistice, as narrated. The note in which Sir Ian was informed of this authorisation concluded with the words: “J’ai l’honneur d’être avec l’assurance de ma plus haute considération, Liman von Sanders.” So the courteous amenities of slaughter were maintained, and the Turks buried 3000 corpses, all killed since May 18.

Formidable as the Turkish onset had been, a still more serious peril now threatened the expedition. For some days past, rumours of two hostile submarines had reached the Staff. Since all communication was by sea, since the guns were largely furnished by the fleet, and even General Headquarters were afloat, no news more ominous could have arrived. A foretaste of danger was given on May 13, when, in the darkness, a Turkish destroyer slid silently down the strait and torpedoed the battleship Goliath, lying at anchor off Morto Bay to support the French flank. She was a fifteen-year-old ship (12,950 tons), and she sank at once, carrying down her captain, Thomas Shelford, 19 officers, and over 500 men. As they drowned, they were swept by the current past the Cornwallis, lying nearly a mile astern, and their cries for help were pitiful. The Cornwallis boats saved 56, but only 183 were saved in all.119

Nearly a fortnight later (May 25 and 27), a large German submarine, U51, which had come round by Gibraltar (others perhaps hailed from the Austrian naval base at Pola), struck two heavy blows in succession. Off Anzac, the Triumph (11,800 tons, completed 1904) lay at anchor, with nets out. Suddenly she was struck by a torpedo, which cut through her nets like thread. In ten minutes she sank, carrying down three officers and sixty-eight men, within sight of the Anzac forces, which she had so finely served. All of the Anzacs volunteered a month’s pay toward the expense of salving her, but that was impossible. The next morning but one, the Majestic (Captain Talbot), 1895, 14,900 tons, Rear-Admiral Stuart Nicholson’s flagship, lying at anchor close off Helles, her nets out, and surrounded by small craft of all kinds, met the same fate. The submarine picked her out as a good sportsman picks out the king of a herd. Fortunately, she was prepared for the stroke, and only forty-eight men were lost. She sank in six fathoms, listing heavily to starboard, and then turning completely over, so that her keel remained visible, like the back of a huge whale, above the surface till near the end of the campaign, when she was blown up as an obstruction. On the same day as the disaster to the Triumph, a submarine also aimed at the Vengeance, the Lord Nelson (Admiral de Robeck’s flagship), and three of the French battleships. It was evident that the whole system of naval action, anchorage, and supply must be changed.

Warships and transports were rapidly withdrawn, for the most part to Mudros harbour. The Queen Elizabeth had been sent home at the first rumour of the peril, as being too valuable to risk upon a distant and secondary purpose. For the rest, the neighbouring island of Imbros, lying only from ten to twelve miles west and south-west from the landing-places on the Peninsula, afforded an open bay as roadstead, sandy, shallow, and fully exposed to the north wind. On the east side, the bay or inlet is protected by a long promontory of sand dunes and sandstone cliff, known as Cape Kephalos. On the west rise the mountains of Imbros, perhaps the most beautiful even of Ægean islands. On this part of the island only three small hamlets stand, squalid with poverty. But a mountain track over a pass in the central range leads to the chief village of Panaghía, and two other large villages, rich, as Greek islands go, in maize, vines, fig trees, and olives. About two miles beyond Panaghia lies the crumbling little port of Kastro, dominated by an ancient ruined castle, Byzantine, Venetian, or Turkish, into which slabs of white marble have been built, remnants of some Greek temple. The island appears to have small place in Greek history and literature, though an unknown staff officer, meeting me in one of the valleys, unexpectedly quoted perhaps from Sappho a passage about it or Lemnos. And, indeed, it is a haunt fit for rugged and pastoral gods rather than for polite literature, civilisation, and war. From the top of the pass the whole of the Peninsula is seen; the Straits and the plain of Troy beyond; and far in the distance the grey heights of Ida, and dim mountains of Mitylene. Looking west across a narrow water, one sees near at hand the vast red peaks of Samothrace, a natural home of savage mysteries.

The arrival of hostile submarines caused the dispersal of the fleet and transports, leaving the main supply of the army to indefatigable trawlers, fleet-sweepers, and other small craft, and involving the removal of General Headquarters from sea to land. For some days the Arcadian had a merchant ship lashed each side of her for protection, but the navy refused further responsibility, and at the end of May Sir Ian and his Staff put ashore on Imbros. There was no choice, for Tenedos was largely occupied by the French; Mudros was too distant; and on the Peninsula no place could be found for General Headquarters without entanglement in the headquarters of divisions or the Anzac Corps. Kephalos Bay was nearly equidistant from both landings (about twelve miles from Anzac, and ten from Helles), with both of which it was rapidly connected by telephone and telegraph. Accordingly, the camp was pitched among the sand dunes at the base of the Kephalos promontory, looking over the bay to jagged mountains beyond. A small stone pier was built, for Headquarter use only, whence Sir Ian visited the Peninsula on a torpedo boat three or four times every week. On the opposite side of the bay the navy constructed a similar but longer pier, and sank a collier and two smaller Italian vessels to form a breakwater against the north. Thus a fairly sheltered port was made for the trawlers running daily to the Peninsula with drafts and supplies, and for those which returned to Mudros for more. Level ground, stretching over a mile south-west, was used as a store-depôt, a rest-camp, and a training-place for reinforcements. Up in the hills a camp was laid out for Turkish prisoners, who worked at road-making. Two or three miles away, above a salt marsh, and upon the south coast, were stations for R.N.A.S. aeroplanes, which numbered about 60 in all, but never counted more than 25 or 30 in action. In the later months of the expedition, General Headquarters were removed to the entrance of the deep valley leading up to the pass, because gales, dust storms, hostile aeroplanes, and want of water and shade upon the sand dunes added, as might have been foreseen, to the inevitable discomforts of war.

On May 25 (one month after the landing) Sir Ian issued a special order “to explain to officers, non-commissioned officers, and men the real significance of the calls made upon them to risk their lives, apparently for nothing better than to gain a few yards of uncultivated land.” He pointed out that “a comparatively small body of the finest troops in the world, French and British, had effected a lodgment close to the heart of a great Continental Empire, still formidable even in its decadence.” Owing to their attacks, the Government at Constantinople was gradually wearing itself out. Understating the estimates received from the agents of neutral Powers, he showed that, at the beginning, the Peninsula had been defended by 34,000 Nizam (first line) troops and 100 guns, with 41,000 half-Nizam, half-Redif (second line) on the Asiatic side. By May 12 these had been reinforced by 20,000 infantry and 21 batteries of field artillery. Since then at least 24,000 had been added from Constantinople and Smyrna. Our small expeditionary force, though so much reduced,120 had during the month held in check nearly 130,000 of the enemy, and, at a low estimate, had inflicted on him the loss of 55,000, thus diminishing the fully trained men at his disposal. The order concluded with the words:

The task was indeed great, if not the greatest; but in London and on the fronts of war events combined to increase its difficulty. So far as the expedition was concerned, the collapse of the Russian armies under General von Hindenburg’s violent attacks in Courland, Poland, and Galicia was the event of most vital importance. In this month of May the enemy seized the port of Libau, approached Przemysl, threatened Warsaw, and drove the Russians back from the Carpathians into the basin of the Dniester. In consequence of these successive blows, it became certain that the Russian Army Corps of 43,000 men under General Istomine, which was to advance upon Constantinople from the eastern side as soon as our fleet and army dominated the Dardanelles, would be withdrawn, and the expectation of Russian assistance was abandoned. No longer threatened from the Black Sea, Turkey could now divert an equivalent force to the defence of the Peninsula, and did, in fact, divert four or five Divisions. What was worse, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, long hesitating on which side his interests lay, was encouraged by the Russian defeats to put his calculating trust upon the German alliance. Yet our diplomatists, apparently unpractised in deception and ingratitude, had fondly supposed that Bulgaria would never take arms against her Russian deliverer, and were even counting upon her co-operation in the Near East. In spite of such errors, it is currently believed that aristocratic diplomatists and Foreign Ministers are endowed with an ancestral instinct for diplomacy beyond the possible possession of people less nobly born, and for this reason, if for no other, we must indeed be thankful that our aristocracy has survived to protect us from blunders even more disastrous than their own.

In the middle of May the Salandra-Sonnino Ministry, urged on by the poet D’Annunzio and the Futurist Marinetti, declared war upon Austria; but Italy’s intervention had small influence on the position in the Dardanelles. Mr. Asquith’s deliberate overthrow of his own Cabinet, and his attempt to promote the national cause by a large Coalition Ministry, in which he might well have anticipated a hostility fatal to his leadership, had greater effect, and the effect was malign. Mr. Winston Churchill, who could be counted upon to promote the interests of the expedition as his own particular child, retired to the Duchy of Lancaster, resigning the Admiralty to Mr. Balfour’s charge. Just before his resignation his trusted adviser and opponent, Lord Fisher, had himself resigned, and refused to return, though called upon by the appeal of the whole nation, outside the industrious promoters of panic. His place as First Sea Lord was taken by Sir Henry Jackson; but the country deplored the loss to her service of a great personality. That element of luck which forms part of a successful General’s endowment was already turning against the expedition, and critics were beginning to advise retreat, foretelling disasters which the prophecy of evil often contributes to promote.121