NAVY AT GALLIPOLI

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 November 1934, Page 3

NAVY AT GALLIPOLI

SIR ROGER KEYES’ CRITICISM Hector Bywater, “Daily Telegraph’’ naval correspondent, writes: — “Not to persevere: that was the crime.” It is Mr. Winston Churchill’s verdict on the Gallipoli campaign. And it is unreservedly endorsed by Adml. of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, whose “Naval Memoirs” include a full and candid chronicle of the greatest but in many ways most glorious failure in the history of British arms. Sir Roger occupied a position that gave him a broader view of the campaign as a whole than any other historian of Gallipoli can claim. If he is partisan, his prejudice extends only to those who threw obstacles in the way of success. During his service as CJiief of Staff to three successive admirals in the Mediterranean, a period covering all the Dardanelles operations from the opening naval attack to the final evacuation, his restless activity caused much friction without appearing to have left him 1 with a single permanent enemy. As a self-confessed fanatic for victory—in other words, as a whole-heart-ed fighting man and patriot—he had no use for faint-hearts or obstructionists. Never for an instant did he doubt the feasibility of mastering Gallipoli, and thus opening a corridor to a reasonably early peace. “In the light of our knowledge today, can anyone doubt,” he says, “that the forcing of the Dardanelles, would have shortened the war by two years and spared literally millions of lives?” granting this to be still a moot question, the case here presented on behalf of the “victory-at-all-costs” party at the Dardanelles is by far the strongest yet put forward. That the book will convince many who have hitherto remained sceptical is, I t.hin.k, certain. Despite intense provocation, there is not a line of malicious comment in its 523 pages. Yet the author deals faithfully with every argument yet advanced, political or strategic or technical, against the vigorous prosecution of the Gallipoli plan, and apparently riddles the target with every salvo. The book covers two distinct phases: the development of the British submarine service, with which Sir Roger was intimately associated from 1910 to February, 1915, and the story of Gallipoli. Each forms a complete narrative rich in incident and told with sailorlike zest.

New light is thrown, sometimes a blaze of it, on the first six months of the war in the Narrow Seas, We learn how departmental stupidity caused the destruction of the three Cressy cruisers by a small German submarine and the loss of 1,500 lives. Again and again had the Admiralty been warned by Keyes and other officers then serving in the North Sea that this “live bait” squadron would infallibly be lost unless it were withdrawn. But all to no purpose.

“To sink them in the early days of the war was about as simple an operation for a submarine captain as the stalking of tame elephants, chained to trees, would be to an experienced biggame hunter who wished to kill them unseen and unsuspected.” Though intensely loyal to his cloth, S.'r Roger does not mince his words . ; criticising the Naval staff work : days. There is no excuse • _x. h.inders committed in the North Sea and elsewhere. Men on the spot risked their careers by writ-

ing candid' minutes, and even approaching the highest quarters over the heads of their immediate superiors. But almost always they came up against a blank wall. Lord Fisher once predicted that sooner or later the British Empire would be lost “because it will be Buggins’s turn next.” U-BOAT MENACE The warmest friend of the Navy cannot but be struck by its strange subservience to the fetish of seniority. Recent disclosures by Mr. Lloyd George on the subject of convoy have caused a stir in the country which the modern Navy will do well to heed. In the course of 1917 we came within an ace of losing the war because senior officers fought tooth and nail against the urgent solicitation of many of their juniors—backed by despised laymen, from Mr. Lloyd George downward, who insisted on crediting merchant watch-keeping officers with a modicum of intelligence—for a trial of the convoy system. In the end it took a peremptory order from the Cabinet to secure the trial of a system that defeated the U-boat menace in six months.

In the present case, however, the chronicle of lost opportunity is frequently relieved by flashes of the old naval spirit. Our success in the Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank affairs, though not exploited as fully as it might have been, created in Germany a far deeper impression than the Admiralty realised. Officers commanding our battle cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers and submarines, the hard-riding cavalry units of the Fleet, were burning to follow up these initial thrusts by heavier blows at the enemy. But the Admiralty did not approve, and soon there developed in the North Sea a stalemate which Jutland merely confirmed. And so, in due course, grew up the U-boat menace,, which might have been stifled at birth had our naval policy in 1914-15 been directed by fighting seamen like Nelson, Blake and Hawke.

Sir Roger went to the Mediterranean in peculiar circumstances. He was in the bad books of “Jacky” Fisher, who never forgot or forgave. Mr. Churchill came to the rescue by offering him the appointment as Chief of Staff in the fleet then being assembled for the Dardanelles attack.

The naval attempt to crush the Turkish defences and pass the fleet into the Sea of Marmora began on February 19, 1915, and continued, save for pauses occasioned by bad weather, till the great assault of March 18. On •this day two old British battleships and one French foundered in a minefield, the battle cruiser Inflexible had a narrow escape, and other ships sustained damage. On the face of it this was a reverse, and unfortunately the superficial view was widely accepted. Yet, as Sir Roger’ points out, the casualties were trivial in comparison with those cheerfully incurred in a minor operation on the Western Front. In the naval action of March 18 the total British and French casualties were less than 800 officers and men. Floating mines were mainly responsible. The “hurricane of fire” from the Turkish defences had probably not accounted for 100 casualties, and most of the damage it inflicted on the ships was not serious. So much for the debit side.

On the credit side, the Turks’ defences had been terribly hammered, their guns were almost but of ammunition, and their morale low. But, it

lias been argued, we could not know that at the time. Sir Roger Keyes challenges this by pointing out that on the night following the attack he spent four hours in a destroyer cruis ing to and fro in the zone of battle. “Except for the searchlights there seemed to be no sign of life, and I had a most indelible impression that we were in the presence of a beaten foe. I thought he was beaten at two p.m. I knew he was beaten at four p.m.—and at midnight I knew with still greater certainty that he was absolutely beaten. I felt that the guns’ of the forts and batteries and the concealed howitzers and field guns were no longer a menace. Mines moored or drifting must, and could, be overcome.” LEADING ACTORS IN DRAMA Through the cross-currents of political and military considerations which led to the exacuation of Gallipoli the narrative is steered with a steady hand. It makes plain much that has hitherto been obscure, and will, no doubt, lead many readers to reverse judgments long accepted as unassailable.

Most of the leading actors in the drama live again in these vivacious pages—Asquith, Winston Churchill, Kitchener, Fisher, lan Hamilton, “Rosy” Wemyss, and others. The touchstone by which Sir Roger measures personal greatness in war is the fiery ardour that will accept no defeat.

“I had it out again with the Admiral on Friday and again on Saturday. He can only see disaster and paints pictures, which one ought not to do in war. I told him our forefathers would never have won great victories such as the Nile and Copenhagen if Nelson had only thought of the difficulties.”

No consideration of rank or seniority prevented this forthright sailor from speaking his mind, as witness his remarkable interviews with Loyd Balfour and Lord Kitchener. As is well known, the military deadlock at Gallipoli revived the idea of forcing the Narrows by the fleet alone. So convinced was Sir Roger Keyes that this could be done that he obtained leave to visit London to plead his case. Sanction for the enterprise was first promised, then provisionally given, and finally refused. Even to-day the story of all this vacillation makes sour reading. But Sir Roger hiriiself was never downcast for long. His indomitable . spirit, which survived every setback, shines through the pages of a book is at once a most important contribution to war literature and an inspiration to all who believe in Britain and her future.