Grasping Gallipoli

by Peter Chasseaud

  … the information contained in the secret official publications which the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force took out with it was by no means to be despised. All but one of the landing places actually utilised on the famous 25th April were, I think, designated in these booklets [emphasis added], and that one was unsuitable for landing anything but infantry. A great deal of the information proved to be perfectly correct, and a good deal more of it might have proved to be correct had the Expeditionary Force ever penetrated far enough into the interior of the Peninsula to test it.82

  Callwell was in fact so incensed by Hamilton’s dishonesty in disparaging the Directorate of Military Operations in this way that he asked to be allowed to give further evidence to the Dardanelles Commission, and when he appeared again in front of the members he actually brought copies of all the relevant documents that he had handed to Colonel Fuller, one of Hamilton’s Staff, before he departed for the Dardanelles. He described these as: ‘pamphlets and Reports… all compiled by the General Staff. It was all old stuff, I mean – it was not my own work at all; but these reports are kept up to date, and I think they were fairly well up to date as far as could be ascertained’. Callwell also stated that copies of the 1906 General Staff memorandum on forcing the Dardanelles had been destroyed (burnt) by order of Campbell-Bannerman, the Prime Minister, and that his own copy had been removed from his safe for that purpose.83 This explains why Hamilton was not shown a copy, though other copies survived.

  Callwell asked to give further evidence to the Commission, and restated it forcefully in his memoirs, in order to underline the point that ‘no blame was fairly attributable to those who were responsible for information of some sort being available’.84 As DMO, he was, of course, protecting his own reputation and that of his Directorate. From his position of inside knowledge about military intelligence work, he made the situation regarding the availability of information very clear:

  To have obtained full information as to the Gallipoli Peninsula and the region around the Dardanelles, but especially as to the peninsula, was a matter of money – and plenty of it. In no country in the world in pre-war days was spying on fortified areas of strategical importance without money a more unprofitable game than in the Ottoman dominions. There were, on the other hand, few countries where money, if you had enough of it, was more sure to procure you the information that you required. Ever since the late General Brackenbury was at the head of the Intelligence Department of the War Office in the eighties secret funds have been at its disposal, but they have not been large, and there have always been plenty of desirable objects to devote those funds to. Had the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1906 taken the line that, even admitting an attack upon the Straits to be a difficult business, its effect if successful was nevertheless likely to be so great that the matter was to be followed up, a pretty substantial share of the secret funds coming to hand in the Intelligence Department between 1906 and 1914 would surely have been devoted to this region. All kinds of topographical details concerning the immediate neighbourhood of the Dardanelles would thereby immediately have been got together, ready for use; it would somehow have been discovered in the environs of Stambul that the Gallipoli Peninsula had been surveyed and that good, large-scale maps of that region actually existed, and copies of those large-scale maps would have found their way into the War Office, where they would speedily have been reproduced.85

  Apart from refuting Hamilton’s assertions, Callwell was also concerned to rebut the claim by two members, representing Australia and New Zealand, of the Commission that ‘there had been great neglect on the part of the War Office’. As far as Callwell’s view of the correct military plan to follow is concerned, he later told the Dardanelles Commission that the ‘right plan would be to effect a landing in strength on the west side of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where there was a long stretch of suitable beach (at, and north of, the point where the Anzacs actually landed), and to capture the high ground dominating the Narrows on that side’.86 This was the old Grover plan of 1877.

  Much has been made by various critics of the ‘out-of-date’ nature of some of the information provided (in fact a great deal was remarkably good), but little has been said about the serious, and successful, attempts to update it. Even if Hamilton and Braithwaite were not given, before they left London, copies of reports on the Dardanelles defences which had been sent to the War Office since 1911 by successive military attachés at Constantinople and vice-consuls at Chanak, they soon received this information in theatre. If they did not receive it at the briefing stage, we can only suppose that it was because the expedition was despatched in such a hurry. The information was certainly in the hands of the Navy, both in the Naval Intelligence Division at the Admiralty and in the Eastern Mediterranean (Dardanelles) Squadron under Carden and later de Robeck. The Naval Intelligence Officer at Malta also acted as a clearing house for all information coming into his hands relating to the Aegean and Levant.

  The War Council in London was also fully informed. Hankey told the Dardanelles Commission that the Admiralty War Staff kept a book on the Dardanelles (presumably NID 838: Turkey Coast Defences, May 1908), and that he kept a copy of this and the ‘General Staff book on the Dardanelles Defences’ (the 1909 Report on the Defences of Constantinople) by his side at every meeting of the War Council in 1914–15. He constantly referred to these confidential books at every meeting, and gave out information from them to members of the Council.87 Hankey also stated that the British fleet in the eastern Mediterranean in late 1914 and early 1915 had an intelligence officer who in February 1915 (and probably earlier) supplied the military with information, and that all intelligence available in the Admiralty and the War Office was sent automatically (to Hamilton).88

  When asked whether the War Council was given any intelligence reports on Gallipoli, Hankey made the following statement:

  Yes, as I said, I always had these books [Admiralty War Staff book on the Dardanelles NID 838, and the War Office 1909 Report] in the room, and there were long extracts from them frequently read out. Of course, the Admiralty and the War Office had them all, and any member of the War Council who wished to could come to my office and see them. Mr Balfour frequently used to come in.89

  He stated too that additional information from the Admiralty and the War Office was also given regularly to the War Council,90 and that in peacetime Secret Service sources had been feeding information to the service Intelligence Departments.91 In a secret paper for the War Council entitled After the Dardanelles. The Next Steps (dated 1 March 1915), Hankey noted that the greater part of the population on both sides of the Dardanelles was Greek, and that Greek information regarding garrisons was usually reliable.92 As the risk of Allied action increased, the Turks took measures to remove the Greek population from the threatened zones, as it posed a clear security risk. The key village of Krithia, in the Helles sector, had been ‘abandoned at the close of 1914 by the Greeks and actually taken possession of by the [Turkish] troops’.93

  Concluding remarks

  Undoubtedly the lack of a permanent joint naval and military combined operations planning staff played a big part in any intelligence hiatus in the run-up to the despatch of Hamilton’s force. A continual flow of information was arriving in London via military attachés, the Naval Mission in Constantinople, consuls, allies, etc., and was not properly coordinated, analysed, evaluated or distributed. By comparison, the 1943–4 preparations for the D-Day landings had the advantage of a unified command and chief of staff, a combined joint staff, a Theatre Intelligence Section, a prolonged preparation period, vast resources, a proper recognition of the importance of air reconnaissance and survey, of beach and terrain intelligence, and so on.

  Nevertheless, it is a gross libel on all the War Office staff to suppose that they did not supply the reports, handbooks, maps and other information, held in their departments or in the War Office Library, to Hamilton, Braithwaite, and the officers of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force General Staff, and the �
��A’ and ‘Q’ Branch officers who followed as a second echelon. Callwell made it clear that all the available secret reports and handbooks were supplied. Hedley, of MO4 (GSGS), certainly did his bit by arranging with Dowson, the Survey of Egypt chief, in August 1914 to take responsibility for Middle East mapping and, in particular, to enlarge to 1:40,000 and reproduce the one-inch map when a decision to operate at the Dardanelles had been taken. Hudleston, in charge of the War Office Library, must also have played his part.

  And it should also be remembered that there was a great Allied intelligence-collecting centre in Egypt. Maxwell’s Intelligence Staff in Cairo, under Clayton, were gathering information on the Turkish order-of-battle, dispositions and other related matters, and were able to share this with Birdwood’s Anzac, and later with Hamilton’s ‘Medforce’ Staff. They also had the benefit of the French Military Mission in Egypt, one member of which was Colonel Maucorps, who for five years had been French military attaché in Constantinople.94 The next chapter takes the developing intelligence picture up to the landings of 25 April.

  Notes

  1. Aspinall-Oglander, Brig.Gen. C F, History of the Great War, Military Operations, Gallipoli, Vol. I, London: Heinemann, 1929, pp. 46–7.

  2. Gooch, J, The Plans of War. The General Staff and British Military Strategy c1900– 1916, London: Routledge, 1974.

  3. Robertson, Gen. Sir W, Soldiers and Statesmen, Vol. I, London: Cassell, 1926, p. 160.

  4. Magnus, Philip, Kitchener, London: John Murray, 1958.

  5. Hedley typescript, para 2. In Defence Geographic Centre.

  6. History of RE, Vol. 6, 113.

  7. Hogarth, D G, ‘Geography in the war theatre in the Near East’, Geographical Journal, 65, 1915, pp. 457–51.

  8. Romer Diary.

  9. Garnett, David (ed.), The Letters of T E Lawrence, London: Spring Books, 1964, pp. 188–9; Newcombe, Col. S F, ‘T E Lawrence. Personal Reminiscences’, PEF Quarterly, July 1935, pp. 110–13.

  10. Graves, Robert, Lawrence and the Arabs, London: Cape, 1927, pp. 81–2.

  11. Weldon, L B, ‘Hard Lying’. Eastern Mediterranean 1914–1919, London: Herbert Jenkins, 1925.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Hedley typescript, para 11, subsection (a).

  14. Cunliffe Owen to The Secretary, Army Council, 27-9-1927, in IWM Department of Documents.

  15. Typescript note, signed by Parry (Hydrographer) and dated 14-11-1914, on chart in Dardanelles Charts relating to Eastern Mediterranean Squadron, 1914–1916. TNA(PRO) ADM 137/787.

  16. 1914, Mediterranean War Records, Dardanelles, pp. 281–5. TNA(PRO) ADM 137/2165.

  17. Pears, Sir Edwin, Forty Years in Constantinople, London: Herbert Jenkins, 1916, p. 343.

  18. Talbot for Callwell, memorandum The Gallipoli Peninsula, signed ‘Cal DMO 1/9/14’, ‘A’, in TNA(PRO) WO 106/1463.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Dallas, memorandum The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Peninsula, dated 1.9.14, ‘B’, in TNA(PRO) WO 106/1463.

  21. Covering minute by Talbot, dated 5.9.14, in TNA(PRO) WO 106/1463.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Summary of Proposed Evidence of Major-General Charles Callwell, Minutes of Evidence to the Dardanelles Commission. TNA(PRO) CAB 19/33, p. 107.

  24. Untitled typescript memorandum signed ‘Charles Callwell DMO 3/9/14’, at ‘D’, in TNA(PRO) WO 106/1463.

  25. Both at ‘C’ in TNA(PRO) WO 106/1463.

  26. Cunliffe Owen, Lt-Col. F, file Forcing of Dardanelles. Feasibility Report on Operations in the Dardanelles, 1914, TNA(PRO) WO 106/1462.

  27. Cunliffe Owen to The Secretary, Army Council, 27-9-1927, in IWM Department of Documents.

  28. Rhodes James, Robert, Gallipoli, London: Pimlico, 1999, p. 80.

  29. Portions of Charts Nos 1198 and 2429, bound in HS Vol. 901 Dardanelles, Charts relating to eastern Mediterranean Squadron, 1914–1916, as nos 12 & 13, TNA(PRO) ADM 137/787 and letter No. 215 in ADM 137/881.

  30. Letter No. 216 in TNA(PRO) ADM 137/881.

  31. Typescript note, signed by Parry, op. cit.

  32. Dardanelles 1915 Jan–April (H.S. 1089), item 316. TNA(PRO) ADM 137/1089.

  33. Andrew, Christopher, Secret Service. The Making of the British Intelligence Community, London: Heinemann, 1985, p. 89.

  34. Summary of Proposed Evidence … Callwell, op. cit., p. 107.

  35. Ibid.

  36. 1914, Dardanelles, Mediterranean War Records, Dardanelles, p. 366. TNA(PRO) ADM 137/2165.

  37. Dardanelles, 1914 Sept–Dec. TNA(PRO) ADM 137/881.

  38. Admiralty files on Loss of Submarine E15 on 18-4-15. TNA(PRO) ADM 1/8418/90.

  39. Signal from Malta to Vice Admiral, Eastern Mediterranean Squadron, 4-3-15; British Library: Keyes Papers, 5/11.

  40. Keyes, R, The Naval Memoirs of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, Vol. I, London: Butterworth, 1934, pp. 288–90.

  41. Remarks after paper by D G Hogarth, given at the Royal Geographical Society on 26 April 1915: ‘Geography of the War Theatre in the Near East’, Geographical Journal, 45(6), June 1915, pp. 457–71.

  42. Garnett, op. cit., p. 190.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Dardanelles. Tracing Admiralty Chart No. 2429, Defences since 4th August 1914, Enclosure No. 11 in Med. Letter No./34 dated 24-12-14, in TNA(PRO) ADM 137/787.

  45. The Dardanelles Inquiry. Proof. Notes for Evidence … Part II – The Origin and Initiation of the Joint Naval and Military Attack on the Dardanelles, April 25. Sheet No. 353. No. 45. TNA(PRO) CAB/17/184.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Minutes of Evidence to the Dardanelles Commission, p. 725, TNA(PRO) CAB 19/33.

  48. Notes for Evidence …, TNA(PRO) CAB/17/184, op. cit.

  49. Dardanelles 1915 Jan–April (H.S. 1089), item 317. TNA(PRO) ADM 137/1089.

  50. Guide to Greece, The Archipelago, Constantinople, The Coast of Asia Minor, Crete and Cyprus, 3rd edn, London: Macmillan, 1910, p. xiii.

  51. See Allen, Capt. G R G, ‘A Ghost from Gallipoli’, RUSI Journal, May 1963, 108(630), pp. 137-8, and letter from Adm. W M James in RUSI Journal, November 1963, 108(632), pp. 374-5; also Rhodes James, op. cit., pp. 48–9.

  52. GHQ MEF Intelligence Summary, Dardanelles, TNA(PRO) WO 157/647.

  53. TNA(PRO) ADM 186/600, C.B. 1550 Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Attacks delivered on and the Enemy Defences of the Dardanelles Straits, 1919. Admiralty, Naval Staff, Gunnery Division, April 1921, p. 3. Unsquared copies of these charts are at TNA(PRO) WO 301/619, 620 & 621.

  54. Royal Naval Division, General Staff, War Diary, TNA(PRO) WO 95/4290.

  55. Ibid.

  56. Rhodes James, op. cit., p. 41.

  57. Hamilton, Sir Ian, Gallipoli Diary, Vol. I, London: Edward Arnold, 1920, p. 73.

  58. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., p. 79.

  59. Reports from HMS Ark Royal, Dardanelles Operations, Feb–May 1915. TNA(PRO) AIR 1/2099/207/20/7.

  60. Lee, John, A Soldier’s Life. General Sir Ian Hamilton 1853–1947, London: Pan 2001, pp. 143–4.

  61. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 6.

  62. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., p. 88.

  63. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 13–14.

  64. Dardanelles Operations – Copies of Telegrams 1915 (GOC-in-C, Egypt), TNA(PRO) 158/574.

  65. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 13–14.

  66. The Dardanelles Commission 1914–16, London: The Stationery Office, 2001, p. 118.

  67. Report on the Defences of Constantinople. General Staff. Secret. 1909. War Office. [A 1311]. [(B 369) 100 2/09 H & S 400WO]. Copy No. 3 D.M.O. xii + 151 pp. TNA(PRO) WO 33/2333. Plates to accompany the Report on the Defences of Constantinople, General Staff, War Office, 1908. (B 369) 11 2/09 H & S 400-2 WO containing 72 plates, including many folding plans, panorama sketches, photographs, etc. TNA(PRO) WO 33/2334.

  68. See for example Callwell, p. 98, where he speaks of ‘the secret official publications which the MEF took out with it’.

  69. Report on Certain Landing Places in Turkey in Europe, 1909. Prepare
d for the General Staff. War Office. (Secret). (B133) 50 6/09 H & S 158 WO. vi + 56 pp. TNA(PRO) WO 33/478.

  70. Manual of Combined Naval and Military Operations, 1913. Confidential. 40/GEN. No./269 [A 1674] London: Printed for HMSO by Harrison & Sons, St Martin’s Lane, Printers in ordinary to His Majesty. (B 156) 4000 9/13 H & S 194 WO. 72 pp., c3.5 x 4 inches. hard buff covers. TNA(PRO) WO 33.644.

  71. Copy in collection of Dr Peter Chasseaud.

  72. The Dardanelles Commission 1914–16, op. cit., p. 68.

  73. Ibid, p. 119.

  74. Travers, Tim, Gallipoli, Stroud: Tempus, 2001.

  75. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 16.

  76. Ibid, p. 46.

  77. Rhodes James, op. cit., p. 53.

  78. Aspinall’s written statement to the Dardanelles Commission, p. 59 in TNA(PRO) CAB 19/28.

  79. Rhodes James, op. cit., p. 53.

  80. Papers of Dr O C Williams (Private Diary, started March 13 1913, of O C Williams, Capt. GHQ, British Med. E. F.), IWM, Department of Documents, 69/78/1.

  81. Garnett, op. cit., p. 197.

  82. Callwell, Maj.-Gen. Sir C E, Experiences of a Dug-Out, London: Constable, 1920, p. 98.

  83. Printed Minutes of Evidence to the Dardanelles Commission, pp. 1180–4, TNA(PRO) CAB 19/33.

  84. Callwell, op. cit., pp. 96–7.

  85. Ibid, p. 97.

  86. Callwell’s Summary, op. cit., in TNA(PRO) CAB 19/28.

  87. Hankey’s evidence to Dardanelles Commission, TNA(PRO) CAB 63/18 (microfilm), sheet 146.

  88. Ibid, sheet 152.

  89. Ibid, sheet 160.

  90. Ibid.

  91. Ibid, sheet 167.

  92. After the Dardanelles. The Next Steps. Secret. Notes by the Secretary to the Committee for Imperial Defence, dated March 1st 1915. TNA(PRO) CAB 63/17 (microfilm). sheet 137.

  93. 29th Division General Staff War Diary, Intelligence Summaries, in TNA(PRO) WO 95/4304.

  94. The Dardanelles Commission, op. cit., p. 116.