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.’
‘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… ’
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.