Gallipoli Diary. Ian Hamilton
French Division, and Wemyss is in dismay at the thought of having to squeeze more ships into Mudros harbour. His anxiety has given me exactly the excuse I wanted, so I have dropped this fly just in front of K.'s nose, telling him that "There are persistent rumours here amongst the French that General d'Amade's Command is to be joined by another French Division. Just in case there is truth in the report you should know that Mudros harbour is as full as it will hold until our dash for the Peninsula has been made." We will see what he says. If the Division exists, then the Naval people will recommend Bizerta for their base; the ships can sail right up to the Peninsula from there and land right away until things on Lemnos and Tenedos have shaken themselves down.
Our first Taube: it passed over the harbour at a great height. One of our lumbering seaplanes went up after it like an owl in sunlight, but could rise no higher than the masts of the Fleet.
12th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos. The Queen Elizabeth has been having some trouble with her engines and in the battle of the 18th was only able to use one of her propellers. Now she has been overhauled and the Admiral has asked me to come on board for her steam trials. These are to take place along the coastline of the Peninsula and I have got leave to bring with me a party selected from Divisions and Brigades. So when I went aboard this morning at 8.30 there were about thirty-five Officers present. Starting at once, we steamed at great pace half way up the Gulf of Saros and about 1 o'clock turned to go back, slowing down and closing in to let me take a second good look at the coast. Our studies were enlivened by an amusing incident. Nearing Cape Helles, the Queen Elizabeth went astern, so as to test her reverse turbines. The enemy, who must have been watching us like a mouse does a cat, had the ill-luck to select just this moment to salute us with a couple of shells. As they had been allowing for our speed they were ludicrously out of it, the shot striking the water half a mile ahead. We then lay off Cape Helles whilst a very careful survey of the whole of that section was being made. The Turks, disgusted by their own bad aim, did not fire again. On our way back we passed three fakes, old liners painted up, funnelled and armed with dummy guns to take off the Tiger, the Inflexible and the Indomitable. Riding at anchor there, they had quite the man-o'-war air and if they draw the teeth of enemy submarines (their torpedoes), as they are meant to do, the artists should be given decorations. At 6 p.m. dropped anchor and I transhipped myself to the Arcadian. Birdwood and Hunter-Weston had turned up during the day; the latter dined and is now more sanguine than myself. He has been getting to know his new command better and he says that he did not appreciate the 29th Division when he wrote his appreciation!
13th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Heavy squalls of rain and wind last night. Band-o-bast badly upset; boats also bottoms upwards and at dawn—here in harbour—we found ourselves clean cut off from the shore. What a ticklish affair the great landing is going to be! How much at the mercy of the winds and waves! Aeolus and Neptune have hardly lost power since Greeks and Trojans made history out yonder!
Have sent K. an electrical pick-me-up saying that the height of the Queen Elizabeth fire control station had enabled me to see the lie of the land better than on my previous reconnaissance, and that, given good luck, we hope to get ashore without too great a loss.
In the afternoon the wind moderated and I spent an hour or two watching practice landings by Senegalese. Our delay is loss, but yet not clear loss; that's a sure thing. These niggy-wigs were as awkward as golly-wogs in the boats. Every extra hour's practice will save some lives by teaching them how to make short work of the ugliest bit of their job.
14th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian," Lemnos. A day so exquisitely lovely that it should be chronicled in deathless verse. But we gaze at the glassy sea and turn to the deep blue cloudless sky, victory our only thought.
Colonel Dick, King's Messenger, has arrived bringing letters up to 3rd instant. Or rather, he was supposed to have brought them, and it was hoped the abundance of his intelligence would have borne some relation to the cost of his journey—about £80 it has been reckoned. As a matter of fact, apart from some rubbish, he brings one letter for me; none for any of the others. Not even a file of newspapers; not even a newspaper! In India many, many years ago, we used to call Dick Burra dik haì, Hindustani for, it is a great worry. So he is only playing up to his sobriquet. The little ewe lamb is an epistle from Fitz giving me a lively sketch of the rumpus at the War Office when its pontiffs grasped for the first time the true bearing of their own orders. There was a rush to saddle poor us with the delay as soon as the Cabinet began to show impatience. They seem to have expected the 29th Division to arrive at top speed in a united squadron to rush straightway ashore. They don't yet quite realise, I daresay, that not one of their lovely ships has yet put in an appearance. That the men who packed the transports and fixed their time tables should say we are too slow is hardly playing the game.
Never lose your hair: that is a good soldier's motto. My cable of last night, wherein I tried to calm their minds by telling them the sea was rough and that, even if every one had been here with gaiter buttons complete, I must have waited for a change in the weather, has answered Fitz's letter by anticipation.
Worked all day in my office like a nigger and by mid-day had got almost as black as my simile! We are coaling and life has grown dark and noisy. In the middle of it, Ashmead-Bartlett came aboard to see me. He has his quarters on the Queen Elizabeth as one of the Admiralty authorised Press Correspondents, or rather, as the only authorised correspondent. In Manchuria he was known and his writing was well liked. When he had gone, de Robeck and I put through a good lot of business very smoothly. A little later on, Captain Ivanoff, commanding H.I.M.S. Askold, (a Russian cruiser well-known to fame in Manchurian days), did me the honour to call.
After lunch went ashore and saw parties of Australians at embarking and disembarking drill. Colonel Paterson, the very man who bear-led me on tour during my Australian inspection, was keeping an eye on the "Boys." The work of the Australians and Senegalese gave us a good object lesson of the relative brain capacities of the two races. Next I went and inspected the Armoured Car Section of the Royal Naval Division under Lieutenant-Commander Wedgwood. He is a mighty queer chap. Took active part in the South African War. Afterwards became a pacifist M.P.; here he is again with war paint and tomahawk. Give me a Pacifist in peace and a Jingo in war. Too often it is the other way about.
All this took me on to 5.30 p.m. and when I came back on board, Hunter-Weston was here. He has been out since last night on H.M.S. Dartmouth to inspect the various landing places. His whole tone about the Expedition has been transformed. Now he has become the most sanguine of us all. He has great hopes that we shall have Achi Baba in our hands by sunset on the day of landing. If so he thinks we need have no fear for the future.
All is worked out now and I do not quite see how we could improve upon our scheme with the means at our disposal. If these "means" included a larger number of boats and steam launches, then certainly, by strengthening our forces on either flank, viz., at Morto Bay (where we are sending only one Battalion) and at a landing under the cliffs a mile West of Krithia (where we are sending one Battalion), we should greatly better our chances. Also, a battery of field guns attached to the Morto Bay column, and a couple of mountain guns added to the Krithia column would add to our prospects of making a real big scoop. But we cannot spare the sea transport except by too much weakening and delaying the landing at the point of the Peninsula; nor dare I leave myself without any reserve under my own hand. I am inclined, all the same, to squeeze one Marine Battalion out of the Naval Division to strengthen our threat to Krithia. Hunter-Weston will be in executive command of everything South of Achi Baba; Birdwood of everything to the North.
I went very closely with Hunter-Weston into the question of a day or night attack. My own leanings are in favour of the first boat-loads getting ashore before break of dawn, but Hunter-Weston is clear and strong for daylight. There is a very strong current running round the point; the exact lie of the beaches is unknown and he thinks the confusion inseparable from any landing will be so aggravated by attempting it in the dark that he had rather face the losses the men in boats must suffer from aimed fire. Executively he is responsible and he is backed by his naval associates.
Birdwood, on the other hand, is of one mind with me and is going to get his first boat-loads ashore before it is light enough to aim.