THE BOOK OF BLUNDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 105, 3 May 1917, Page 5

THE BOOK OF BLUNDERS.

THE DARDANELLES REPORT. PUBLICATION CONDEMNED. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, March 13. It may safely be said that ninety people out of every hundred in the Old Country look upon the publication of the first Dardanelles report as a blunder, and most of our leading newspaperreflect public opinion. Only here and there in the press is there any disposition to dwell upon the contents of the documents, and even those journals which showed a tendency to indulge in sermonising on the many texts offered by it seem to have been very ready and willing to drop the subject the moment the fall of Bagdad afforded them an excuse for doing so.

So far as the general public is concerned it may be truly said that Sir Stanley Maude's Mesopotamian success has pushed the Dardanelles report right into the background. There were, no doubt, advantages to be gained by holding the inquiry during the war, and whilst the memories of those intimately connected with the inception and execution of the operations against Turkey were still fresh concerning events connected therewith. Under these circumstances the Commission might extract lessons that would be of great value to those respv -si'ble for the further conduct of the war. But such advantages could have been secured without publication at this juncture, and the one ground for satisfaction is the knowledge that the document, before being submitted to the criticism of friends and foes, was examined by the naval and military experts, thus conveying the assurance that n 0 secrets of present importance are disclosed. On the other hand, it having been necessary to withhold much of the evidence given before the Commission, we do not get "the whole truth," and this means that we do get serious possibilities of injustice —not only to individuals, but to the British nation. The ''Chronicle" puts the matter in a nutshell when it says: —""'We cannot think that it"was wise, when the country is still in danger, to publish under such circumstances a report in which not only are nearly all the politicians, generals, and admirals concerned exposed to varying degrees of censure, but the whole organisation and performance of both our military and our navy machines are exhibited in anything but a creditable light. We know that there is a school of opinion, very vocal in the Press, which regards it as almost the whole duty of a patriot in these days to cry stinking fish. But what those who think and act thus habitually forget— with a forgetfulness to which there is absolutely no parallel in any other of the belligerent countries —is that there is such a thing as national credit, and that its conservation during war-time is lof vital national importance if our country is to carry its proper weight In the world's councils."

As Tegards injustice to individuals, the public is, of course, most concerned with those portions of the report which relate to Lord Kitchener. It is stated over and over again, apparently to Lord Kitchener's discredit, that his dil'atoriness or his refusal to send the 29th Division to Gallipoli contributed to the early failure. It woulg he interesting to know exactly what the evidence on this point is. What were 'Lord Kitchener's real reasons for refusing? They may all have been wise and well founded. Lord Kitchener is dead. His personal military secretary (Colonel Fitzgerald) died with him. They both gave their lives for their country before they could appear before this Commission to defend themselves, and we may never know what Lord Kitchener's real reason was for his apparent vacillation over the dispatch of the 29th Division to the Dardanelles. It is quite possible that there were very real dangers on the Western front at that period of which we know nothing, but which rendered it imperative to retain the 29th Division in France for the time 'being. - So far as we know the Commission did not examine any expert witnesses who were in a position to give first-hand information as to the actual condition of affairs on the British sector of the Western front during Lord Kitchener's "vacillating" period between February 16 and March 10, 191-. We know that Lord Kitchener was in the habit of keeping his own council, and it is highly probable that during this period things were happening in connection with the war in the West concerning w r hich he did not even take the other members of the War Council fully into his confidence. There ■were, in those days, many indications that the War Council's deliberations were not always carried on in, so to speak, a water tight compartment, and many things happened to suggest that leakages of more or less important information were by no means of infrequent occurrence. The casual reader may come to the conclusion that it was Lord Kitchener's over-centralising temperament that betrayed him, and that he did far too much which he ought to have commissioned others to do. But it is quite possible that he felt limself compelled to centralisation and secretiveness, and to act on his own initiative, | lest his cherished plans should be 'brought to nought through indiscreet gossip, in high places.