On this encouraging note the Admiral and his chief-of-staff finally went to their cabins for a few hours’ rest.
Keyes rose next morning, March 19, and having shaved, as was his custom, with a copy of Kipling’s ‘If’ propped up before him, went out to survey the condition of the Fleet, which had spent the night sheltering about Tenedos. It was clear that a day or two must elapse before the attack could be resumed—the wind was again rising to a gale and there was much to be done in organizing the new minesweeping force—but everywhere the captains and the crews were eager to renew the fight.
In the course of the morning a message arrived from the Admiralty condoling with de Robeck over his setback but urging him to press on with the attack.
His losses were to be made good by four more battleships—the Queen, Implacable, London and Prince of Wales—which would sail at once. In addition the French Ministry of Marine was replacing the Bouvet with the Henri IV.
The damage to the French squadron had been severe: Gaulois had been forced to ground herself on Rabbit Island to the north of Tenedos, and the Suffren was leaking from the effects of a plunging shell. The Gaulois, however, was soon pumped out and refloated, and with the Inflexible and the Suffren she went off to Malta for repairs. Meanwhile the organization of the new minesweeping force began. One hundred and fifteen men from the trawler crews were sent home and there was an overwhelming response from the crews of the Ocean and the Irresistible for volunteers to replace them. Kites, wire mesh, and other tackle were ordered from Malta, and at Tenedos Greek fishermen were engaged to help the British crews in equipping the destroyers as minesweepers. All day in heavy seas this work was pressed forward, and on March 20 de Robeck was able to report to the Admiralty that fifty British and twelve French minesweepers, all manned by volunteers, would soon be available. Steel nets would be laid across the straits to deal with floating mines when the attack was renewed. ‘It is hoped,’ he added, ‘to be in a position to commence operations in three or four days.’
Now too an efficient squadron of aircraft under the command of Air Commodore Samson began to arrive. With this the Navy hoped greatly to improve their spotting of the enemy guns.
De Robeck also wrote to Hamilton, who had gone to Lemnos to inspect the 2,000 marines and the 4,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers who had already arrived there. He urged Hamilton not to take these troops back to Egypt for re-grouping as he proposed to do, since it might create a bad impression in the Balkans just at the moment when the Navy was about to resume its attack. ‘We are all getting ready for another go,’ he said, ‘and not in the least beaten or down-hearted.’
Hamilton did not share this confidence. He had been deeply moved by what he had seen of the battle on March 18, and perhaps he was affected by the sight of the damaged Inflexible creeping back to Tenedos. Perhaps he was influenced by Birdwood, who from the beginning had never believed that the Fleet could do the job alone. Other considerations—even a simple chivalrous desire to help the Navy—may have weighed with him; but at all events he sent the following message to Kitchener on March 19:
‘I am most reluctantly driven to the conclusion that the straits are not likely to be forced by battleships, as at one time seemed probable, and that, if my troops are to take part, it will not take the subsidiary form anticipated. The Army’s part will be more than mere landing parties to destroy forts; it must be a deliberate and prepared military operation, carried out at full strength, so as to open a passage for the Navy.’
Kitchener had replied with surprising energy: ‘You know my view, that the Dardanelles must be forced, and that if large military operations on the Gallipoli peninsula by your troops are necessary to clear the way, those operations must be undertaken, after careful consideration of the local defences, and must be carried through.’
This then was the situation on March 21—a Naval Command that believes that the Fleet can still get through alone, and an Army Command convinced that it cannot.
The following morning, March 22, de Robeck decided to take the Queen Elizabeth over to Lemnos for a conference with Hamilton. There is something of a mystery about this meeting, for none of the subsequent accounts of what took place are in agreement with each other. Keyes was occupied with the arrangements for the new naval attack and was not present, but he assures us that he believed that nothing more than future military movements were to be discussed. Those who assembled in the Queen Elizabeth were Hamilton, Birdwood and Braithwaite from the Army, and De Robeck and Wemyss from the Navy.
Hamilton’s version is as follows: ‘The moment he sat down de Robeck told us that he was now quite clear he could not get through without the help of all my troops. Before ever we went on board, Braithwaite, Birdwood and I agreed that, whatever we landsmen might think, we must leave the seamen to settle their own job, saying nothing for or against the land operations or amphibious operations until the sailors themselves turned to us and said that they had abandoned the idea of forcing the straits by naval operations alone. They have done so. The fat (that is us) is fairly in the fire.
‘No doubt we had our views. Birdie (Birdwood) and my own staff disliked the idea of chancing mines with million pound ships. The hesitants who always make hay in foul weather had been extra active since the sinking of the three men-of-war. Suppose the Fleet could get through with the loss of another battleship or two—how the devil would our troopships be able to follow? And the store ships? And the colliers?
‘This had made me turn contrary. During the battle I had cabled that the chances of the Navy pushing through on their own were hardly fair fighting chances, but since then de Robeck, the man who should know, had twice said that he did think that there was a fair fighting chance. Had he stuck to that opinion at the conference, then I was ready, as a soldier, to make light of military croaks about troopships. Constantinople must surrender, revolute or scuttle within a very few hours of our battleships entering the Marmara. Memories of one or two obsolete six-inchers at Ladysmith helped me to feel as Constantinople would feel when her rail and sea communications were cut and a rain of shell fell upon the penned-in populace from de Robeck’s terrific batteries. Given a good wind that nest of iniquity would go up like Sodom and Gomorrah in a winding sheet of flame.
‘But once the Admiral said his battleships could not fight through without help, there was no foothold left for the views of a landsman.
‘So there was no discussion. We at once turned our faces to the land scheme.’
This account does not square with what Keyes knew of de Robeck’s views up to the time of this meeting; and it does not square with a message the Admiral sent to London after the meeting was over.
‘I do not hold the check on 18th decisive,’ he wrote, ‘but, having met General Hamilton on 22nd and heard his proposals, I now consider a combined operation essential to obtain great results and object of campaign. . . . To attack Narrows now with Fleet would be a mistake, as it would jeopardize the execution of a better and bigger scheme.’
In other words, it is only after he has heard Hamilton’s proposals that he decides to abandon the naval attack.
Whatever may be the truth of this matter—whether Hamilton enticed de Robeck away from the naval attack or whether de Robeck himself suggested that the Army should come in and help—the important thing is that on March 22 the Admiral changed his mind; nothing more was now to be done by the Fleet until the Army, now scattered along the Mediterranean, was assembled and ready to land.
One can perhaps glimpse something of what was going on in de Robeck’s mind. The wounds of March 18 were beginning to stiffen and hurt. To sailors of de Robeck’s generation it was an appalling thing to lose battleships, no matter how old and out of date they were. Most of their lives had been spent on these decks; these ships had been their home, and through the years they had developed for them not only affection but pride as well. The whole tradition of the Navy was that the ship was more important than the man: no matter what the cost in lives the capt
ain must always try to save his ship. And now in a few hours three of the largest vessels of the Fleet with their famous names had gone to the bottom.
Then again de Robeck was perfectly aware of Fisher’s opposition to the Dardanelles adventure. For the moment Churchill might be holding the old Admiral in line, but young and enthusiastic First Lords did not last for ever. Fisher stood for the Navy, its permanence and its traditions, and he was a formidable man. He had said all along that the Fleet was not likely to get through without the aid of the Army, and now here were three sunken battleships to prove his point. Suppose another three ships were lost when the attack was renewed? It could very easily happen. What was Fisher going to say to that?
There was one other point. De Robeck had very much Hoped that once he was in the Marmara Hamilton would land at Bulair on the neck of the peninsula, and that the Turkish Army, finding itself cut off, would surrender. Thus there would no longer be any threat to the lifeline of the Fleet through the Dardanelles. But at the meeting Hamilton had announced that it could not be done. He had been up to Bulair himself aboard the Phaeton, and had seen the network of entrenchments there. Hamilton now proposed that he should land instead at the tip of the peninsula and fight his way up it. This altered the Fleet’s situation entirely. It meant that there would be no sudden collapse of the Turks; they would continue to hold the Narrows and threaten the supply ships coming through. It was true that from the Marmara the Fleet could attack the Turkish forts from the rear. But how long would it take to destroy them? How long could the Fleet remain isolated in the Marmara without coal and ammunition; and with the Goeben still intact? A fortnight? Three weeks?
There were of course grave dangers in delaying the renewal of the naval attack until the Army was ready. With every day that went by the Turks were recovering from the bombardment of the 18th, and one had only to look at the new entrenchments that appeared every morning on the cliffs to know that reinforcements were arriving. Well then, how much delay would there be? Hamilton thought it would be about three weeks before he was ready. Had Kitchener allowed the 29th Division to sail at the beginning of February as he had originally intended, the troops would be here now, and it would have been a very different story. But the 29th was still at sea, far down the other end of the Mediterranean,6 and Hamilton did not believe he could attack without them—and in fact Kitchener had expressly forbidden him to do so.
Birdwood disagreed with Hamilton over this. He said that it might be worth while taking a chance and landing there and then with whatever forces they could scrape together at Lemnos. But on going into the matter it was found that every sort of equipment from guns to landing craft was missing. Moreover, the transports coming out from England had been stowed in the wildest confusion: horses in one ship, harness in another: guns had been packed without their limbers and isolated from their ammunition. Nobody in England had been able to make up their minds as to whether or not there were roads on the Gallipoli peninsula, and so a number of useless lorries had been put on board. To have landed on hostile beaches in these conditions would have been a hazardous thing. Nor were there any facilities for repacking the ships at Lemnos. So now there was nothing for it but to take everything back to Alexandria in Egypt, and there re-group the whole force and its equipment in some sort of battle order. Provided his administrative staff arrived in good time, Hamilton judged that the Army might be ready to land on Gallipoli somewhere about the middle of April—say, April 14. Then the Army and the Navy could attack together.
Upon this the meeting of March 22 broke up.
Keyes was appalled when he got back to the Queen Elizabeth and heard the news. He pleaded with de Robeck not to change his plans. The new minesweeping force, he said, would clear all their difficulties away, and they were bound to get through. To delay for the Army would be fatal.
De Robeck was still uneasy in his mind and he agreed to see Hamilton again. In the afternoon the two sailors went across to the Franconia where the General was living and Keyes set out his arguments again. He was asked when his minesweepers would be ready, and he replied that it would be in about a fortnight’s time: April 3 or April 4. De Robeck then pointed out that since Hamilton would be ready on April 14 this only meant a delay of ten days. ‘So,’ says Keyes, ‘the matter was finally settled.’ He adds, ‘I must confess I was fearfully disappointed and unhappy.’
To this theme Keyes returned again and again in later days, and it finally emerges in an unrepentant counter blast in the memoirs he published in 1934: ‘I wish to place on record that I had no doubt then, and have no doubt now—and nothing will ever shake my opinion—that from the 4th of April onwards the Fleet could have forced the straits and, with losses trifling compared with those the Army suffered, could have entered the Marmara with sufficient force to destroy the Turco-German Fleet.’
By 1934 Keyes was an Admiral of the Fleet and a great man in the world, with a fighting record that put him almost in the Nelson class. But in 1915 he was no more than an exceptionally promising young commodore, and he was no match for the steady conservatism of the Navy personified by de Robeck. De Robeck was no weakling—he was a kindly, firm, courageous and fair-minded man—but he had had his training and he was the one who bore the responsibility. That sudden flash of inspiration that will sometimes transport a commander past all the accepted rules of warfare into a field of daring that carries everything before it was perhaps lacking in the Admiral’s character, but he can hardly be blamed for that. His ‘no’ was a definite no; it only remained now to learn how London would view this change of plan.
Churchill says he heard the news with consternation. He told the Dardanelles Commission later: ‘I regarded it (the battle of March 18) as only the first of several days’ fighting, though the loss in ships sunk or disabled was unpleasant. It never occurred to me for a moment that we should not go on, within the limits of what we had decided to risk, till we had reached a decision one way or another. I found Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson in the same mood. Both met me that morning (March 19) with expressions of firm determination to fight it out.’
But now, on March 23, Churchill has a telegram from de Robeck saying that he will not move without the Army, and not for another three weeks. At once—and one can imagine with what pugnacity—Churchill sat down and drafted a telegram ordering the Admiral to ‘renew the attack begun on March 18 at the first favourable opportunity’. Then, convening a meeting of Fisher and the War Group at the Admiralty, he placed the telegram before them for their approval.
Describing this meeting, Churchill says: ‘For the first time since the war began, high words were used around the octagonal table.’ To Fisher and the other admirals it seemed that with de Robeck’s telegram the situation at the Dardanelles had entirely altered. They had been willing, they said, to support the purely naval attack so long as the admiral on the spot had recommended it. But now both de Robeck and Hamilton had turned against it. They knew the difficulties; they had the responsibility. To force them to attack against their own judgment would be entirely wrong.
Churchill could make no headway against these views though he appears to have argued with great energy that morning. When finally the meeting broke up without a decision he still persisted in his opinion. But it was evident that he was defeated. Asquith said that he agreed with Churchill, but he would not give the order against the advice of the admirals. De Robeck in a further exchange of telegrams proved immovable. At the Dardanelles the bad weather continued, and Hamilton went off with his staff to Egypt. In London Kitchener informed the War Council that the Army was now quite willing to take over from the Navy the task of opening the straits. With this there was nothing more to be said, and Churchill gave up at last. With good grace he sent off a message to de Robeck saying that his new plans had been approved.
A silence now settled on the Gallipoli peninsula: no ship entered the straits, no gun was fired. The Fleet lay at anchor in the islands. The first part of the great adventure was over.
> CHAPTER FIVE
‘The Turks belong to the Turanian race which comprises the Manchus and Mongols of North China: the Finns and the Turks of Central Asia.’—WHITAKER’S ALMANAC
‘The epithet popularly associated with the Turk in the English mind is “unspeakable”: and the inevitable reaction against the popular prejudice takes the form of representing the Turk as “the perfect gentleman” who exhibits all the virtues which the ordinary Englishman lacks. Both these pictures are fantastic. . . .’
ARNOLD TOYNBEE and KENNETH P. KIRKWOOD in a study of Turkey written after the war.
ALTHOUGH they knew they had inflicted great damage on the Allied Fleet on March 18 it never occurred to the German and Turkish gunners on the Dardanelles that the Allied warships would not resume their attack on the following day. The men stood to their guns all through the morning of March 19, and when there was still no sign of the enemy they presumed that it was the gale that was preventing the ships from coming back. But the rough weather subsided and as day followed day without any sign of the Fleet their sense of dazed relief began to change into hope. By the end of the month this hope had developed into certainty.
There was one man in Constantinople who could claim that he had never been in the slightest doubt about this astonishing result. As early as February Enver had been saying to his friends in the capital that it was all nonsense; there was nothing to be afraid of, the enemy would never get through. In March he went down to the Dardanelles to watch the battle, and on his return he announced that the defences were absolutely solid; the gunners had plenty of ammunition, the minefields were intact. ‘I shall go down in history,’ Enver said, ‘as the man who demonstrated the vulnerability of the British Fleet. Unless they bring up a large army with them they will be caught in a trap. It seems to me a foolish enterprise.’7
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