Gallipoli Diary. Ian Hamilton
British Army or that a body so infinitely small would be so saucy as to attack them on their own chosen ground. Even now, he says, they can hardly credit their spies, or their eyes, and it ought to be easy enough to make them think all this is a blind, and that we are really going to Smyrna or Adramiti. They are fond of saying, "If the English are fools enough to enter our mouth we only have to close it." Enver especially brags he will make very short work with us if we set foot so near to the heart of his Empire, and gives it out that the whole of us will be marching through the streets of Constantinople, not as conquerors, but as prisoners, within a week from the date of our making the attempt. All the same, despite this bragging, the Turks realise that if we were to get the Fleet through the Narrows; or, if it were to force its own way through whilst we absorb the attention of their mobile guns, the game would be up. So they are straining every nerve to be ready for anything. The moral of all these rather contradictory remarks is just what I have said time and again since South Africa. The fact that war has become a highly scientific business should not blind us to the other fact that its roots still draw their nutriment from primitive feelings and methods; the feelings and methods of boy scouts and Red Indians. It is a huge handicap to us here that our great men keep all their tricks for their political friends and have none to spare for their natural enemies. There has been very little attempt to disguise our aims in England, and Maxwell and McMahon in Egypt have allowed their Press to report every arrival of French and British troops, and to announce openly that we are about to attack at Gallipoli. I have protested and reported the matter to K. but nothing in the strategic sphere can be done now although, in the tactical sphere, we have several deceptions ready for them.
Colonel Napier, Military Attaché at Sofia, and Braithwaite came in after these pseudo-secrets had been discussed and joined in the conversation. I doubt whether either Fitzmaurice or Napier have solid information as to what is in front of us, and their yarns about Balkan politics are neither here nor there. John Bull is quite out of his depth in the defiles of the Balkans. With just so much pull over the bulk of my compatriots as has been given me by my having spent a little time with their Armies, I may say that the Balkan nations loathe and mistrust one another to so great a degree that it is sheer waste of time to think of roping them all in on our side, as Fitzmaurice and Napier seem to propose. We may get Greece to join us, and Russia may get Roumania to join her—if we win here—but then we make an enemy of Bulgaria, and vice versa. If they will unearth my 1909 report at the War Office they will see that, at that time, one Bulgarian Battalion of Infantry was worth two Battalions of Roumanian Infantry—which may be a help to them in making their choice. The Balkan problem is so intricate that it must be simply handled. The simple thing is to pay your money and pick the best card, knowing you can't have a full hand. So let us have no more beating about the bush and may we be inspired to make use of the big boom this Expedition has given to Great Britain in the Balkans to pick out a partner straightway.
Birdie came later and we took stock together of ways and means. We see eye to eye now on every point. Just before lunch we heard the transport Manitou had been attacked by a Turkish torpedo boat from Smyrna. The first wireless came in saying the enemy had made a bad shot and only a few men had been drowned lowering the boats. Admiral Rosy Wemyss and Hope, the Flag-Captain, of the Q.E. were my guests and naturally they were greatly perturbed. Late in the evening we heard that the Turkish T.B. had been chased by our destroyers and had run ashore on a Greek Island where she was destroyed (international laws notwithstanding) by our landing parties.
At 7.30 p.m. Hunter-Weston came along and I had the best part of an hour with him.
17th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos. Hunter-Weston came over early to finish off business left undone last night. Admiral Wemyss also took part in our discussions over the landing. Picture puzzles are child's play compared with this game of working an unheard of number of craft to and fro, in and out, of little bits of beaches. At mid-day the Manitou steamed into harbour and Colonel Peel, Commander of the troops, came on board and reported fully to me about the attack by the Turkish torpedo boat. The Turks seem to have behaved quite decently giving our men time to get into their boats and steaming some distance off whilst they did so. During the interval the Turks must have got wind of British warships, for they rushed back in a great hurry and fired torpedoes at so short a range that they passed under the ship. Very exciting, we were told, watching them dart beneath the keel through the crystal clear water. I can well believe it.
Went ashore in the afternoon to watch the Australian Artillery embark. Spoke to a lot of the men, some of whom had met me during my tour through Australia last year.
General Paris came to see me this evening.
18th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos. Working all morning in office. In the afternoon inspected embarkation of some howitzers. D'Amade turned up later from the Southland. We went over the landing at Kum Kale. He is in full sympathy and understands. Winter, Woodward and their administrative Staffs also arrived in the Southland and have taken up their quarters on this ship. They report everything fixed up at Alexandria before they sailed. We are all together now and their coming will be a great relief to the General Staff.
Quite hot to-day. Sea dead smooth. The usual ebb and flow of visitors. Saw the three Corps Commanders and many Staff Officers. We are rather on wires now that the time is drawing near; Woodward, though he has only been here one night, is on barbed wires. His cabin is next the signallers and he could not get to sleep. He wants some medical detachments sent up post haste from Alexandria. I have agreed to cable for them and now he is more calm. A big pow-wow on the "Q.E." (d'Amade, Birdie, Hunter-Weston, Godley, Bridges, Guépratte, Thursby, Wemyss, Phillimore, Vyvian, Dent, Loring), whereat the 23rd was fixed for our attack and the naval landing orders were read and fully threshed out. I did not attend as the meeting was rather for the purpose of going point by point into orders already approved in principle than of starting any fresh hares. Staff Officers who have only had to do with land operations would be surprised, I am sure, at the amount of original thinking and improvisation demanded by a landing operation. The Naval and Military Beach Personnel is in itself a very big and intricate business which has no place in ordinary soldier tactics. The diagrams of the ships and transports; the lists of tows; the action of the Destroyers; tugs; lighters; signal arrangements for combined operations: these are unfamiliar subjects and need very careful fitting in. Braithwaite came back and reported all serene; everyone keen and cooperating very loyally. D'Amade has now received the formal letter I wrote him yesterday after my interview and sees his way clear about Kum Kale.
Went ashore in the afternoon and saw big landing by Australians, who took mules and donkeys with them and got them in and out of lighters. These Australians are shaping into Marines in double quick time and Cairo high jinks are wild oats sown and buried. Where everyone wants to do well and to do it in the same way, discipline goes down as slick as Mother's milk. Action is a discipline in itself.
The three Officers forming the French Mission to my Headquarters made salaams, viz., Captain Bertier de Sauvigny, Lieutenant Pelliot and Lieutenant de la Borde. The first is a man of the world, with manners suave and distinguished; the second is a savant and knows the habits of obscure and out of the way people. What de la Borde's points may be, I do not know: he is a frank, good looking young fellow and spoke perfect English.
20th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos. A big wind rose in the night.
A clerk from my central office at the Horse Guards developed small pox this morning. No doubt he has been in some rotten hole in Alexandria and this is the result—a disgusting one to all of us as we have had to be vaccinated.
Ready now, but so long as the wind blows, we have to twiddle our thumbs.
Got the full text of d'Amades' orders for his Kum Kale landing as well as for the Besika Bay make-believe.
21st April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos. Blowing big guns. The event with which old mother time is in labour is so big that her pains are prodigious and prolonged out of all nature. So near are we now to our opening that the storm means a twenty four hours' delay.
Have issued my orders to the troops. Yesterday our plans were but plans. To-day the irrevocable steps out on to the stage.
General Headquarters,