MISTAKES ADMITTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21349, 25 November 1932, Page 11

MISTAKES ADMITTED

MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL

WAR AND OTHER MEMORIES

LONDON, Nov. 9 In Mr. "Winston Churchill's latest book, " Thoughts and Adventures," he states that when Earl Kitchener went back on his undertaking to send the Twenty-ninth Division to reinforce the Dardanelles Expedition it delayed the sending of reinforcements by three weeks. "I should have been prudent and broken off the naval attack," he writes. "I did not do this, and from that moment became accountable for the operation, the vital control of which passed to other hands."

Mr. Churchill also admits that he ought never to have gone to Antwerp, but should have remained in London to try to force the Cabinet and Lord Kitchener to take more effective action.

Referring to the battle of Sidney Street iii 1910, Mr. Churchill again admits that he would have done much better if hj» had remained quietly in his office. He adds:—"l have no desire to live my life over again, happy, vivid, and full of interest as it has been. I do not seek to tread again that toilsome and dangerous path."

When Mr. Churchill was Home Secretary in 1910, he called out detachments of infantry and artillery to deal with two desperadoes, one of whom was named " Peter the Painter," who had barricaded themselves in a house in Sidney Street in the East End of London, fraih which they sniped at the police. Mr. Churchill per- \ sonally directed the operations. When was First Lord of the Admiralty Mrt Churchill visited Antwerp in October, 1914, while, it was besieged by German troops, to concert measures for delaying ■' the withdrawal /of the Belgian Field Army. /