Mons, Anzac and Kut

by Edward Melotte

  48. General Sir Ian Hamilton GCB GCMG DSO TD (1853–1947). Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force March–October 1915.

  49. AH being both extremely diplomatic and ‘tongue in cheek’. His real views were expressed in a letter to his wife Mary, written in June 1915, in which he wrote ‘Ian Hamilton has been here twice, I think for a quarter of an hour each time and has never been around the positions at all. GHQ are loathed.’ His view of Hamilton was further expanded in another letter in July 1915 in which he stated ‘Hamilton has the obstinacy of weak men. I have had one or two instances when I have seen how he and his staff believe what they want to believe in the face of all sense and evidence.’

  50. Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon Charles Bigham, Viscount Mersey CMG CBE PC (1872–1956).

  51. Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Walker KCMG KCB DSO (1862–1934). At that stage Chief of Staff to General Birdwood (although much of the actual planning was left to Colonel Skeen who succeeded him).

  52. Major Kemal Bey (from) Ohri (Binbasi Ohrili Kemal Bey). The commander of the Operations Group of the 3rd Army Corps.

  53. Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey GBE KCB CMG DSO ED (1884–1951).

  54. Major General Neville Howse VC KCB KCMG (1863–1930). Director of the Australian Medical Service.

  55. The usual Albanian greeting.

  56. Or ‘Good luck, go safely and safely return.’

  57. Harold Temperley (1879 –1939), an Intelligence Officer. Towards the end of his life Temperley became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

  58. Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Charles Cavendish-Bentinck DSO (1868–1956).

  59. AH was misinformed. Lieutenant Commander (later Colonel) Josiah Wedgwood MP (1872–1943). Later Baron Wedgwood of Barlaston.

  60. Lieutenant Thomas Screaton (1892–1915). 15th North Auckland Company, Auckland Infantry Battalion.

  61. Lt Harry Pirie-Gordon RNVR. An Intelligence officer.

  63. Commanding New Zealand Infantry Brigade. Afterwards killed at battle of Messines in 1917.

  64. Brigadier Sir Wyndham Deedes (1883–1956).

  65. Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold Amery (1873–1955).

  66. In a letter to Mary Herbert, AH’s wife, Major General Godley described this incident as ‘a VC action in reverse’.

  67. Brigadier-General Alain Joly de Lotbinière (1862–1944) was a French Canadian who served as Chief Engineer of the Anzac Corps. Joly de Lotbinière did much to improve the appalling water supply on Gallipoli, where he was Director of Works and Engineer-in-Chief during the evacuation of the peninsula.

  68. Maj.-Gen. Sir Nevill Smyth VC KCB (1868–1941). Commanding 1st Australian Infantry Brigade.

  69. Admiral Sir Alexander Ramsay GCVO KCB DSO (1881–1972).

  70. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Keyes of Zeebrugge and Dover GCB KCVO CMG DSO CF (1872–1945). Initially Naval Chief of Staff to Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, commander of the Royal Navy squadron off the Dardanelles during the early part of 1915, Keyes subsequently took over the Dardanelles Minesweeping Force.

  71. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881–1931). War Correspondent. His outspoken criticism of the conduct of the campaign played a major part in bringing about the dismissal of the General Sir Ian Hamilton.

  72. Henry Nevinson (1856–1941). War Correspondent.

  73. The author, Sir Edward Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972).

  74. George Brodrick, 2nd Earl of Middleton (1888–1979).

  75. Commander Charles Dix CMG DSO. The Naval Beachmaster.

  76. Birdwood’s ADC, Brian Onslow, a Captain in the 11th Lancers, Indian Army, who had been killed.

  77. Captain Arthur Critchley-Salmonson DSO, Royal Munster Fusiliers, attached to the Canterbury Infantry Battalion.

  78. ‘My mouth doth water, and my breast doth swell, My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be.’ From ‘Astrophil and Stella’, Sir Philip Sidney, circa 1580.

  79. Colonel Neville Manders, Assistant Director Medical Services (ADMS) New Zealand Division.

  80. Irish Guards. Commanding 29th Irish Brigade.

  81. Lieutenant-General the Hon Sir Frederick Stopford KCB KCMG KCVO (1854–1929). Commanded the IXth Corps, formed for the Suvla landings.

  82. George Murray Levick (1877–1956), a Royal Navy surgeon.

  83. Brigadier Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford KP MVO (1864–1915). Commanding the 2nd (South Midland) Brigade. Lord Longford was killed leading an attack on 21st August. His last words were reputed to be ‘Don’t bother ducking, the men don’t like it and it doesn’t do any good....’

  84. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Milbanke VC (1872–1915). Commanding the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers).

  85. Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Maude KCB CMG DSO (1864–1917). Commanding the 134th Division at Suvla. George Kemp, 1st Baron Rochdale CB (1866–1945). Lieutenant-Colonel in command the 1st/6th Battalions of the Lancashire Fusiliers and temporarily commanded the 126th and 127th Brigades of the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division.

  86. Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour KG OM PC (1848–1930). At that time, First Lord of the Admiralty.

  87. Herbert Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG PC KC (1852–1928). At the time, Prime Minister.

  88. Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923). At the time, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  89. Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston KCB DSO GStJ (1864–1940). Initially commanded the British 29th Division, during the landing at Cape Helles he had been promoted on 24 May 1915 to Lieutenant-General and given command of the British VIII Corps.

  90. Lieutenant-Colonel John Sherwood-Kelly VC CMG DSO (1880–1931).

  91. Sultan Husayn Kamil (1853–1917), Sultan of Egypt and Sudan from December 1914–October 1917.

  92. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Trent de Crespigny FRCP (1882–1952). At that time Commanding officer of the 3rd Australian General Hospital.

  93. Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Braithwaite GCB (1865–1945). Chief of Staff for the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. Braithwaite left much of the detailed planning to Colonel Skeen who took over from him as Chief of Staff.

  94. Brigadier General R.A. Carruthers, Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General, Anzac Corps.

  95. In private letters, at the beginning of the Gallipoli campaign, Herbert had complained of being ‘locked on the wrong side of a backdoor of a side show’. On his departure he wrote ‘I never want to see again a mule, a monk, or a backdoor, or a sideshow, or Winston or flies or bully beef’.

  Chapter 3

  97. Admiral of the Fleet Rosslyn Erskine Wemyss, 1st Baron Wester Wemyss GCB CMG MVO (1864–1933).

  98. French, German, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Greek and Albanian.

  99. John Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven Bt GCMG DSO PC JP DL (1874 –1941). A Conservative MP, subsequently the eighth Governor-General of Australia.

  100. Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cummings KCMG CB (1859 –1923). Cummings was the first director of what would eventually become the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

  101. A 12,431-ton P&O liner en route to Bombay. Forty people lost their lives, the majority being women or children. A further 147 people were killed when one of the ships coming to their aid, the tanker Fort William, also hit a mine.

  102. Admiral Sir Arthur Limpus KCMG CB (1863–1931). Senior British Naval Officer, Malta, Mediterranean 1915– 1916.

  103. Admiral of the Fleet Sir John de Robeck GCB GCMG GCVO, 1st Baronet de Robeck of Naas, County Kildare (1862–1928). At the time of writing he was Acting Vice-Admiral in Command of the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron.

  104. Brigadier Sir G.F. Clayton KBE CB CMG. Sudan Agent, Head of Military Intelligence and Head of Political Intelligence Egypt and founder of the ‘Arab Bureau’.

  105. Sir Ronald Storrs (1881–1955), Oriental Secretary of the British Agency in Cairo between 1907 and 1917.

  106. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Arthur McMahon GCMG GCVO KCIE CSI (1862–1949). High Commissioner in Egypt 1915 to 1917, succeeding Sir Milne Che
etham.

  107. Jaafar Pasha was a Turkish Army officer who commanded the Senussi troops during the Senussi Uprising in Egypt. Captured at the Battle of Aqqaqia in February 1916 (which ended the uprising), he was held captive in Cairo until the outbreak of the Arab Revolt. Jafaar Pasha then volunteered to join the forces under Faisal, became commander of the Arab regulars during the revolt and then served as Minister of War and Prime Minister of Iraq under the then King Faisal.

  108. Auberon Herbert, 9th Baron Lucas and 5th Lord Dingwall PC (1876–1916), Aubrey Herbert’s cousin. Lord Lucas was a Captain in the Royal Flying Corps and went missing, presumed killed, on the Western Front over German lines.

  109. The ‘Khedive’ was the title used by the rulers of Egypt and the Sudan until 1914 when Husayn Kamil took the title of Sultan.

  110. General Sir Archibald Murray GCB GCMG CVO DSO (1860–1945). Murray commanded the Egyptian Expeditionary Force from 1916 to 1917.

  111. The Hon Mary Herbert (1889–1970). Aubrey Herbert’s wife, she had travelled out to Cairo with him prior to the Gallipoli Campaign.

  112. Lt.-Col H. F. Jacob CSI (1886–1936). 1st Assistant Resident at Aden (1910–1917) and Chief Political Officer, Aden Field Force.

  113. Major-General Sir Percy Cox GCMG GCIE KCSI (1864–1937). Cox was the Acting Political Resident in the Persian Gulf and Consul-General for the Persian provinces of Fars, Lurestan and Khuzestan and the district of Lingah. Years later he was confirmed as the Resident at Bushire, a post which he occupied highly successfully until 1914, when he was appointed Secretary to the Government of India.

  114. Major-General Sir Charles Townshend KCB DSO (1861–1924). Commanded the 6th Indian Division at Kut.

  115. Major-General Sir Andrew Russell KCB KCMG DSO (1868–1960). Russell has commanded the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the evacuation of Gallipoli and went on to command the New Zealand Division on the Western Front.

  116. Major-General Llewellyn Gwynne CBG CBE (1863–1957) was the first Bishop of Egypt and Sudan. Gwynne joined the Army as a chaplain and eventually became Chaplain General to the British Expeditionary Force.

  117. Sir William Willcocks KCMG (1852–1932). Willcocks had been the head of irrigation for the Ottoman Turkish government, for what was then the greater area of Turkish Arabia and had drawn up the first accurate maps of the region and was thus in a position to advise the British force.

  118. Sir James Saumarez, 5th Baron de Saumarez (1889–1969).

  119. Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly, KCSI (1825–1892).

  120. Maj. W. M. P. Wood, the First Assistant Resident in Aden.

  121. Brigadier William Walton CB CMG commanding the Aden Brigade. Walton was Acting Resident in Aden between February–July 1916.

  122. Known as Port Edward, Weihaiwei sits between the Bohai and Yellow Seas. After Russia had leased Port Arthur from China (on the opposite coast) in 1898, the British obtained a lease on Port Edward which was to run for as long as the Russians stayed in Port Arthur.

  123. Commanding HMS Euryalus. Later Admiral Sir Rudolf Burmester KBE CB CMG (1875–1956).

  124. On 31st December 1905 when travelling from Karachi to Bahrain. The Africa ran aground on a sandbank six miles off the coast.

  125. Leland Buxton (1884–1967).

  126. Lieutenant-General Sir George Gorringe KCB KCMG DSO (1868–1945), Commander 3rd Indian Army Corps during operations in Mesopotamia, March to July 1916.

  127. Edward Murphy, AH’s servant, an Irishman from Abbeyleix, his wife Mary Herbert’s family home.

  128. Lieutenant-General Sir Fenton Aylmer Bt VC KCB (1862–1935). Commanded the Tigris Corps during the first, failed, attempt to break the siege of Kut.

  129. Major-General Maitland Cowper CB CIE (1860–1932). Quarter Master General of the Indian Expeditionary Force D.

  130. Lynch Bros, Merchants and Ships’ agents of London.

  131. General Sir Percy Lake, KCB KCMG (1855–1940), succeeded Nixon as Commander-in-Chief, Mesopotamia.

  132. Lieutenant-General Sir John Nixon (1857–1921), Commander-in-Chief in Mesopotamia (April 1915–January 1916), Nixon’s overconfidence and subsequent overstretch of his force led to the siege of Townshend’s Division at Kut.

  133. Gertrude Bell CBE (1868–1926), the writer, traveller, political analyst and administrator in Arabia. An old acquaintance of AH from his pre-war travels in the region, she was also an eminent archaeologist.

  134. Army Provost Marshals.

  135. Sir John Kennaway Bt (1879–1956).

  136. General Sir Webb Gillman KCB KCMG (1870–1933). At that time, a Brigadier and Liaison Officer between the War Office and the Mesopotamia Force.

  137. Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Leachman CIE DSO (1880–1920). Leachman served as an Intelligence Officer and Political Officer in Iraq and Arabia. In December 1915, Townshend ordered Leachman to save the British cavalry by breaking out of Kut and riding south. This he did and the cavalry were the only unit to escape before the city fell. After the war, Leachman was the first military governor of Kurdistan.

  138. Colonel W.H. Beach CB CMG DSO, Head of Military Intelligence in Mesopotamia.

  139. Major-General Sir Arthur Money (1866–1951).

  140. Brigadier Edmund Costello VC CMG CVO DSO (1873–1949).

  141. Commander Bernard Buxton DSO RN (1882–1923).

  142. Lieutenant-General Sir Douglas Brownrigg KCB CB DSO (1886–1946).

  143. Lieutenant-Colonel T. E. Lawrence CB DSO (1888–1935).

  144. Maj the Hon Robert Palmer (1889–1916). Son of the Earl of Selborne and a cousin of AH by marriage. Killed at the Battle of Um El Hannah on 21st June.

  145. Major-General Sir George Younghusband (1859–1944).

  146. Lieutenant Humphrey Firman VC RN (1886–1916).

  147. Lieutenant Commander Charles Cowley VC RNVR (1872–1916).

  148. Sir Wilfred Peek, a friend of AH’s from Devon and General Townshend’s ADC.

  149. Colonel Charles Repington (1858–1925). Military Correspondent for The Times.

  150. Lieutenant Charles Vane-Tempest (1896–1917). Durham Light Infantry and Royal Flying Corps. Died of wounds at Ligny in a German camp, a few hours after being taken prisoner.

  151. Lt.-Col. Hugh Acland-Troyte (1870–1918). A friend and neighbour of AH from Devon.

  152. AH wrote to his wife, Mary Herbert, describing this interview: ‘I was very glad as I felt I was avenging a whole horde of poor devils that this swine has brow-beaten.’

  153. Sir (Joseph) Austen Chamberlain KG (1863–1937), Secretary of State for India 1915-1917. AH knew Chamberlain well, although he thought little of him, writing in a private letter: ‘he has his father’s eye glass and the next man’s mind’.

  154. AH’s telegram caused a significant degree of angst among the hierarchy of the Government of India. Admiral Wemyss wrote to AH explaining: ‘I found them all in a great state of perturbation about your telegram. I think they had all hoped that you would accompany me as they would have liked to have had your blood, and I think it is as well for you that you went off when you did. The Viceroy told me that your telegram was looked upon as a political attack on the Financial Member of the Council, but I told him that he knew you quite well enough to be able to refute any such idea, and that even supposing you were wrong all through, there was one thing that they could be certain of, and that was the purity of your motives ..’. The Government of India subsequently tried to have AH court-martialled for breaching military discipline – the War Office refused.

  155. Hugo Charteris, Lord Elcho (1884–1916).

  156. Michael Hicks-Beach, Viscount Quenington (1877–1916).

  157. Commander C. R. Wason RN, commanding HMS Odin.

  158. A RNAS pilot.

  159. See Footnote 121.

  160. In February 1916, the Pathan Muslim Squadrons of the 15th Bengal Lancers (Cureton’s Multanis) refused to march from Basrah to fight the Turks near the holy city of Karbala, requesting instead to be sent anywhere, excep
t there, which they believed would violate their beliefs. Of the 429 soldiers involved, three Non Commissioned Officers (NCOs) were given life sentences, the remaining NCOs fifteen years and the soldiers seven years, to be served in the Andaman Islands. They were released in 1917.

  161. AH reached Cairo on 2nd June and England in early July. Returning to Parliament almost immediately, he took up the cudgel and pressed the Prime Minister to devote time to discussion of the conduct of the campaign in Mesopotamia, speaking a total of five times on the subject. Eventually, with a groundswell of support growing behind Aubrey Herbert, the Prime Minister, Asquith, succumbed and a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the conduct of the Mesopotamia campaign.