'THE UNCENSORED DARDANELLES'

Evening Star, Issue 19894, 16 June 1928, Page 18

'THE UNCENSORED DARDANELLES'

MR ASHMEAO-BARTLETPS BOOK Mr Ashmead-Bartlett’s book (writes Mr H. diaries Woods, the well-known war correspondent, in the ‘ Evening News,’ in Ids review of 1 The Uncensored Dardanelles’) stands out alone among all the other accounts which have appeared about the Dardanelles campaign. 1 say this without hesitation, because, knowing the Peninsula cf Gallipoli as 1 do, I am convinced that no other writer has so well and so Jrankly described the difficulties of the ground, the dramatic events which took place, and the mistakes which were made. Mr Ashmead-Bartlett was sent to the Dardanelles by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, winch carried on all negotiations between the authorities and the Press, to represent the whole of the London newspapers. Ho reached the island of Lemnos, the British base opposite the outer entrance to the Straits, bn April 5, 1,915. roughly a fortnight after the allied fleet had failed to force the Narrows and about three weeks before the great landing on the Peninsula of Gallipoli. He came to London (where he had all-important conversations with the leading statesmen of the day) for about a week in June, but otherwise he was actually present from the beginning of the military operations until October, 1915, when he was sent home by the authorities as a result of a letter which he had addressed to Mr Asquith, then Prime Minister, pressing for withdrawal. Opposed as he is to what took place, and especially to the conduct of the

military operations, Mr Aslimead-Bart-lett naturally recognises the importance of the goal in view—a goal whip* bad it been won would have altered the whole course of the war. Moreover, in discussing the broader question of the blame for what happened he appears to bo equally fair. MR CHURCHILL’S PART. Thus he soys that “ in world events those who guide the helm must bear the responsibility for failure or success. . . , It’ is now conceded that Mr Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was responsible for bringing the idea within the sphere of actual realisation. . . . Mr Churchill’s responsibility really ends with the pressure he brought to bear on the Cabinet to land an army on Gallipoli, and with the failure of the naval attack on March 18, 1915. “ Yet he has been most undeservedly blamed for every check suffered by the Navy and for every reverse our Army met with in the field subsequent to that date. Nothing could be more remote from the truth. The active ope- ■ rations of the Navy, acting as an independent force, ended with the repulse of March 13.” In many ways the most interesting and astonishing sections of the volume ore those which deal with Mr AshmeadBartlctt’s conversations with prominent personages at home.