The British guns at this time were down to a ration of two shells a day, no winter clothing had arrived, and during the stalemate of the past two months many units had dwindled to half their strength. Yet there had been no thought of evacuation among the troops. Evacuation was a kind of death, and no one imagined that Monro had come to Gallipoli to discuss it. He had arrived like some eminent specialist called down to the country from London when the local doctors had failed, and it was thought that he would suggest new remedies and ways of treatment, perhaps even some bold act of surgery which would make all well again. But there was no hint of this in his questions. No mention was made of any reinforcements being sent to the peninsula. It was very depressing. The generals replied that the men might keep up an attack for twenty-four hours, but if the Turks made a counteroffensive with unlimited shells and fresh troops—well then they could only do their best. They could say no more.
But Monro hardly needed to hear the generals’ replies. One glance at the beaches had been enough: the ramshackle piers, the spiritless gangs of men hanging about with their carts and donkeys, the shanty-town dug-outs in the cliffs, the untidiness of it all. At Anzac the General glanced at Aspinall with a specialist’s rueful smile. ‘Like Alice in Wonderland,’ he said. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
On the following day he sent Kitchener a message recommending the evacuation of the peninsula. Only the Anzac Corps, he said, was in a fit condition to carry on. What the men needed was rest, re-organization and training. The best thing to do was to get as many as possible back to Egypt where after a few months they might be ready for action again. He followed this with a second message saying that he estimated the losses in an evacuation at between thirty and forty per cent: in other words some 40,000 men.
Here it was then in black and white: the end of the campaign. So many dead and all for nothing, and another 40,000 men to be lost. For the cabinet in London who had to take the final decision it posed an intolerable dilemma, and even those who had been advocating the Salonika adventure were sobered by it. They had asked the professional expert for his opinion, and now they had got it: and it was unthinkable. They hesitated. And while they hesitated the thing they most wished for happened: a new factor came into the scene.
Roger Keyes was still a small man in these affairs. He was no more than a young commodore, his admiral was against him, and for the past eight months he had been isolated from the great political and military issues of the west. But he had one advantage. When nearly everyone was wavering and hesitating about the Dardanelles his views had the clarity that comes from a long pent-up exasperation. His blood was up, he knew what he wanted, and he was every bit as determined as General Monro to whom he was implacably opposed. There is a remarkable counterpoise in the movements of the two men during these few days.
On October 28, when Monro arrived at Imbros, Keyes reached London. Although it was nine o’clock at night he went straight to the Admiralty hoping to get in to see the admirals then and there, but they put him off until the following morning. At 10.30 a.m. on October 29, when Monro was examining the problems of evacuation at Imbros, Keyes had his plan in the hands of Admiral Oliver, the chief of the War Staff, and from there he went on to Sir Henry Jackson, the First Sea Lord. Soon the other admirals were brought in, and at five in the evening he went off to see the First Lord, Arthur Balfour. Next day, when Monro was preparing his evacuation report after his visit to the beaches, Keyes had a second interview with Balfour. They continued for two hours, Balfour lying back full-length in his armchair listening, Keyes talking resolutely on. At a quarter to five in the afternoon Balfour sustained himself with a cup of tea, and at twenty past five he rose and said, ‘It is not often that when one examines a hazardous enterprise—and you will admit it has its hazards—the more one considers it the better one likes it.’ He sent Keyes back to talk to the admirals again.
There was a break then when Keyes went off to see his wife and children in the country. But he was back in the Admiralty on November 2. The next morning he was with Churchill, and in the afternoon he found himself with Kitchener at last.
The plan which Keyes was propounding was quite simply a headlong assault on the Narrows with the battleships and cruisers which had been lying in harbour in the Ægean Islands since May. The attacking fleet was to be divided into two main squadrons. The first of these, with minesweepers and destroyers in the van, was to steam straight at the Narrows just before dawn under the cover of a smoke screen; and come what might, whether the Turkish guns were silenced or not, whether or not all the mines were swept, they were to keep on until some, at least, of the ships got through. Keyes asked for permission to lead this squadron himself. The other squadron, meanwhile—and it was to consist of the monitors and the newer battleships—was to pin down the Turkish shore batteries with a furious bombardment from the mouth of the straits. Once in the Marmara the surviving vessels were to steam directly to the Bulair Isthmus, where they were to cut the single road which was supplying the twenty Turkish divisions now stationed in the peninsula.
Keyes had effective arguments to support his plan. Many of the enemy guns on the straits, he said, had been taken away by the Turkish Army, and a naval attack was not expected. The minefields had now been fully reconnoitred. In every respect, and especially in the support it would get from the new seaplane carriers, the Fleet had been immeasurably improved since March, and the Allied Army was now ashore to do its part in distracting the enemy fire. Already the Turks were finding difficulty in supplying their large Army on a single road—and he pointed to the success of the Allied submarines, three of which were in the Sea of Marmara and dominating it at that moment. Cut the neck at Bulair and the Turks were lost. The French, he added, were all for the new attempt and had offered new warships to take part in it.32 It was true that Admiral de Robeck was still against the idea, but Admiral Wemyss, who was senior to de Robeck and who had been all this time at Mudros, was not. He was very much for it. He should be given the command to carry it through.
Finally, what was the sane and rational decision to take? To risk a few old battleships with a chance of winning the campaign? Or to evacuate, to give up everything with the loss of 40,000 men?
By November 3 Keyes had made headway with these arguments. Jackson, the First Sea Lord, had said he was in favour provided that the Army attacked at the same time. Balfour had all but committed himself. Churchill had needed no persuading. ‘I believe,’ he had written in a recent cabinet paper urging a new attempt, ‘we have been all these months in the position of the Spanish prisoner who languished for twenty years in a dungeon until one morning the idea struck him to push the door which had been open all the time.’ And now Keyes found himself with Kitchener.
Kitchener had been appalled by Monro’s message. He could not bring himself to believe, he said, that a responsible officer could have recommended to the Government so drastic a course as evacuation. He had replied curtly by asking Monro for the opinion of the corps commanders, and Monro had answered that both Davies and Byng were for evacuation, while Birdwood was against it (but only because he feared the loss of prestige in the East). And then there had been this devastating estimate of the loss in cold blood of 40,000 men. Angrily, resentfully, realizing at last how much he was committed to the Dardanelles, Kitchener had been passing between the War Office and the cabinet room saying that he himself would never sign the evacuation order, and that if the Government insisted on it he himself would go out and take command, and that he would be the last man off. Keyes came in like a fresh wind at this moment, and Kitchener seized upon his plan. He told Keyes to return to the Admiralty and get some sort of a definite undertaking from them.
Keyes now was hot on the trail. He was back with Kitchener after dinner with the news that the First Sea Lord had given at least a partial promise: if the Army would attack, then the Navy would probably agree to force the straits at the same time.
While Keyes had been away Kitchener himself had taken a dr
astic decision which committed him more deeply than ever to the Dardanelles. It was a thunderblast in the old Olympian manner, impulsive, imperious, and absolute. He sent the following message to Birdwood, his follower of former days:
‘Most secret. Decipher yourself. Tell no one. You know Monro’s report. I leave here tomorrow night to come out to you. Have seen Commodore Keyes, and the Admiralty will, I believe, agree naval attempt to force straits. We must do what we can to assist them, and I think as soon as ships are in the Marmara we should seize and hold the isthmus (i.e. Bulair) so as to supply them if Turks hold out. Examine very carefully best position for landing near marsh at head of Gulf of Xeros, so that we could get a line across at isthmus with ships on both sides. To find troops for this purpose we should have to reduce to lowest possible numbers the men in all the trenches, and perhaps evacuate positions at Suvla. All the best fighting men that could be spared, including your boys from Anzac and reinforcements I can sweep up in Egypt, might be concentrated at Mudros ready for this enterprise. The admiral will probably be changed and Wemyss given command to carry through the naval part of the work. As regards command you would have the whole force and should carefully select your commanders and troops. I would suggest Maude, Fanshawe, Marshall, Peyton (all new commanders recently sent out from England), Godley and Cox, leaving others to hold the lines. Work out plans for this or alternate plans as you think best. We must do it right this time. I absolutely refuse to sign order for evacuation, which I think would be the greatest disaster and would condemn a large percentage of our men to death or imprisonment. Monro will be appointed to command the Salonika force.’33
This was followed by a War Office signal officially appointing Birdwood to the command of the Expedition and directing Monro to Salonika.
The Field Marshal was up till midnight with Keyes making his plans, and it was arranged that he was to leave for the Dardanelles on the following day. Keyes was to go with him provided that first he got the guarantee of certain naval reinforcements for his attempt on the Narrows.
This was on November 3. November 4 was a still more agitated day. In the morning Keyes got his reinforcements. Four battleships, Hibernia, Zealandia, Albemarle and Russell, 4 destroyers and 24 more trawlers were ordered to the Dardanelles. In the afternoon Balfour sent off a tactful message to de Robeck saying that he had heard that he was not well and in need of a rest; he must come home on leave. ‘In making arrangements for your substitute during your absence,’ the message went on, ‘please bear in mind the possibility that an urgent appeal from the Army to co-operate with them in a great effort may make it necessary for the Fleet to attempt to force the straits. The admiral left in charge should therefore be capable of organizing this critical operation and should be in full agreement with the policy.’
Then in the evening there was a setback. At a farewell meeting with the cabinet Kitchener found the other Ministers still divided between Gallipoli and Salonika. Bonar Law was actually threatening resignation unless the peninsula was evacuated, and Balfour made it absolutely clear that the Navy would do nothing at the Dardanelles unless the Army also attacked. Could the Army attack? Kitchener was forced to say he did not know. After the meeting he sent off a gloomy cable to Birdwood cancelling his previous message. ‘I fear,’ he said, ‘the Navy may not play up. . . . The more I look at the problem the less I see my way through, so you had better very quietly and very secretly work out any scheme for getting the troops off.’
Then he set off, taking the overland route through France to Marseilles, where the Dartmouth was waiting to transport him to the Dardanelles. However, there was better news waiting for the Field Marshal in Paris, where he stopped that night to consult with the French government; the French told him that they were opposed to evacuation. On hearing this, Kitchener cabled Birdwood once again saying that he yet might be reinforced, and another message was despatched to Keyes in London telling him to proceed at once to Marseilles to join the Dartmouth so that they could discuss the joint naval and Army attack on their voyage to Gallipoli.
Keyes never got this message. It arrived at the Admiralty in London, but the officer on duty there decided (quite erroneously) that there was no point in sending it on to the Commodore since he had no hope of getting to Marseilles before the Dartmouth sailed.
Now they were all at sixes and sevens. When Keyes failed to turn up at Marseilles Kitchener concluded that the naval plan must have fallen through, and he sailed despondently without him. Keyes meanwhile, knowing nothing about all this, was jubilant. He went across to Paris, got a promise of six more warships from the French Minister of Marine, and hurried off after Kitchener, confident that all was well. At the Dardanelles de Robeck was getting ready to pack his bags, believing that he was about to be superseded by Wemyss; and Monro, who had been on a trip to Egypt, was confronted with the baffling news that Kitchener had been secretly arranging for his removal to Salonika. Birdwood perhaps was the most perplexed man of all. Kitchener was thrusting greatness upon him, and he was not at all sure that he wanted it. He did not believe that the Army would have a ghost of a chance in making a fresh landing in the vicinity of the Bulair isthmus, and he had no wish to become Commander-in-Chief. He suppressed the War Office cable announcing his appointment, and cabled Kitchener saying that he hoped Monro would remain in command.
And still in London the tug of war between Gallipoli and Salonika went on among the politicians.
But it was the uncertainty of Kitchener’s own position which was the most unsettling aspect of these confused events. Outwardly his prestige remained untouched, the generals and the politicians still revolved around him; yet it was becoming every day more apparent that his former steadiness was deserting him, that he too was being sucked into the fatal limbo of the Dardanelles. As the commanders at Gallipoli and the cabinet Ministers in London were pulled first in one way and then in another, he drifted with the rest and it began to seem that he was no more capable of finding a solution than anybody else. And in fact by the beginning of November only two men appeared to be standing on firm ground. One was Keyes and the other Monro, and the real issue—whether to stay or to go, to attack or retreat—was bound to be decided between them. These too were the champions of the two great opposing camps, and it was simply a question of which was going to be more successful in imposing his will. Kitchener, in other words, was going to Gallipoli not as a leader but as an umpire, and it was a game in which there were no precedents at all.
At first Keyes did not stand a chance. He was still far away on his outward journey to the Dardanelles when Kitchener arrived at Lemnos. The Field Marshal was met by Monro, de Robeck, Birdwood, General Maxwell, the Commander-in-Chief in Egypt, and Sir Henry MacMahon, the Egyptian High Commissioner. Maxwell and MacMahon had come over to express their fears about the safety of Egypt in the event of the Gallipoli evacuation taking place, and in the course of their journey they had reached an agreement with Monro. They were prepared to back an evacuation, they told him, provided he made a new landing on the Asiatic coast of Turkey at Ayas Bay in the Gulf of Iskanderun. This was to prevent the Turks from advancing on the Suez Canal. Monro did not think much of the plan, but he was ready to fall in with it provided he got the troops out of Gallipoli. These three, then, formed a solid block. De Robeck concerned himself chiefly with the technical problems of the Navy. He could get the troops off Suvla and Anzac, he said, but he wanted Cape Helles retained as a base to assist him in blockading the Dardanelles. Birdwood too was coming round to the idea of evacuation, but was absolutely opposed to the Ayas Bay scheme. No one spoke in favour of the Navy making a new attempt on the Narrows—de Robeck indeed expressly repeated that he regarded it as folly.
So now they were all evacuators, all eager to find some way of getting out without losing too much face, and the safety of Egypt had become more important than the capture of Constantinople.
But Kitchener was still not persuaded. He liked the Ayas Bay idea, and sent off a cable to London saying
so; but he held his hand about evacuation. After two days of argument on Imbros he went off to the peninsula and methodically inspected the three bridgeheads, giving a full day to each one.
Like Monro he was depressed by the difficulties of the country, and the precarious hold of the Army on the beaches. But he was not quite so hopeless; he believed they might hold on through the winter, and that, if forced to evacuate, they might get out with fewer casualties than had been anticipated, perhaps no more than 25,000 men. He said all this in a cable to London on his return to Imbros on November 15, but still made no recommendation one way or another as to what should be done. By now a week had gone by.
It was the General Staff at the War Office in London which brought a note of reality into this drifting scene. The Ayas Bay scheme they turned down flat, pointing out that with two fronts already on their hands at Salonika and Gallipoli it was unwise to add a third, and that if the Turks were going to attack Egypt it was much better to meet them after they had crossed the desert than at the outset of their journey. The French in any case hated the idea, since they regarded Ayas Bay and the Alexandretta area as their own sphere of influence. It was many months since anyone, least of all the General Staff, had rejected Kitchener’s advice in such terms as these.
And now more troubles arose. The Salonika force had accomplished nothing in Bulgaria—it had not even made contact with the Serbs—and was now about to fall back into Greece. King Constantine spoke of disarming the troops as they crossed the border. In haste Kitchener set off with Monro on November 16 for Salonika to see what could be done; and it was there at last on the following day that Keyes caught up with him. They met aboard the Dartmouth.
Gallipoli Page 35