DARDANELLES STRATEGY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16577, 28 December 1915, Page 8

DARDANELLES STRATEGY

MR ASHMEAD BARTLETT'S STORY. 1; c n THE LECTURE IN LONDON. " c ( SERIES OF BLUNDERS IMPUTED. e t (From the Sydney Sun's Special Correspond- •( ont, Mr Keith Murdoch.) I 1 LONDON, October 28. London will never oea.se providing extraordinary anomalies during this extraordinary war. \>>u cannot get rid of the impression in this stolid, cold city that there is too much reserve and individualism even in the conduct of the struggle upon which the race depends. Last night at tho great Queens Hall 6000 people were packed to hear Mr Ashmead Bartlett's lecture on the Dardanelles, and never during the two hours in which that brilliant talker told of the splendid heroism and endurance of this ill-iatcd < venture did the a.adience rise from its own temperate level. Jt takes a Lusitania outrage to make tho Londoner break through his reserve. Mr Ashmead Bartlett told of mistakes and failures, of continual under-estimations. of small bands of Britons holding out against immensely superior armies of Turks and Germans, and of a disaster at Suvla Bay which must rank as one of England's rr.ost serious reverses. But the immense crowd of sheltered men and women, nearly all of whom dressed sumptuously and assuredly fed sumptuously, listened in calm to this record of mistakes, and contented themselves with smug mutterings of wonder when the errors told of were proved calamitous, and with cheers when on tho screen were thrown pictures they had learnt to admire—pictures, for the most part, of the Australians preparing for the landing, of General Birdwood in nis rough dug-out, and of the heroes of Anzac in their daily life Several scores of Australian wounded men were scattered about the crowd. Those I have met since are all .agreed that a greater ferocity, concentration, and determination in war work is necessary than this typical London crowd displayed. I met Ashmead Bartlett in the trenches at Anzac under heavy shell fire; in the mess room of a monitor, where naval men had gathered round hhn as round a man admired by grave men; under canvas on an j®gean island, where he had been none the worse a host because of his wide experience 'of foraging. He is a man of supreme and serene daring, of cool wit and brave conscience—a man after Australia's own heart. EXPOSURE TELLS. His despatches were more valuable to Australia than probably any other writings of any other man since Australia was discovered. But it is. doubtful whether even that brilliant work, by -which he secured world-wide recognition for Australians' qualities as fighters, has not been bettered by the invaluable work he has done in London since his return. ' He has dragged out into the open, past the censorship, facts about the bungling at the Dardanelles expedition in a way that has at last secured a beginning of those reforms essential to victory not only in this, but in all theatres of the war. Mr Ashmead Bartlett has not been alone in this work. He was not even first at it. But he has established a striking analogy between himself and Russell, the Times' correspondent at the Crimea, and nothing now can present drastic action in Gallipoli and on the long lines leading thereto. There are circumstances which have not yet been published connected with Mr Ashmead Bartlett's return. He had written to his London employers asking for'his recall, and announcing that he had decided to make an effort to get the whole truth told to the' Government in London. Shortly afterwards ho wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, giv-1 ing his point of view of the whole campaign. CENSOR STOPS DESPATCH. This letter he entrusted to a man who was making direct for London, but it was intercepted at Marseilles, and declared by the War Office to be a breach of the censorship regulations. For this General Hamilton asked Mr Ashmead Bartlett to leave the war correspondents' camp. Some of the real truth about the Suvla | Bay battles came out in the course of the lecture. AS the War Office had been in " consultation with the speaker as to how far he was to be allowed freedom in his statements, it is to be presumed that Lord Kitchener has decided to give the world the ! truth at last about this vaunted victory, : which, as every Australian irr Anzac knows, [ was a defeat. It is necessary to go back to the early i days of the operations to get a thorough i grasp of the Suvla Bay events. The Ad- ■ miralty was fairly confident of getting k through with its ships before the Expedi- ; tionary Force was thought of, and it was > agreed between Mr Winston Churchill and i his expert advisers that the loss of 10 or 12 i pre-Dreadnought wa'rships would be worth the value of having a fleet frowning upon Constantinople. But when three ships were gone, and the three Turkish niines west of the Narrows were still unswept, Admiral de i Robeck decided to withdraw for the night. LONG LIST OF BLUNDERS. ! It was then that General lan Hamilton ' airived, with an Expeditionary Force on its ' way a few days behind him. *Why hasten the further naval bombardment, said Ad- ' miral de Robeck and General Hamilton; why 1 not wait until the expeditionary arm comes 1 to help? They agreed on this course. Then 1 tho long list of blunders began. ' The transports were found to be badly ' packed, and had to be sent bade to Egypt for repacking. By the time they had re--1 turned to Lemnos Island five precious weeks had passed. They were to be a "containing force" only. It was thought the 1 fleet's iguns would blast their way through the Narrows, whilst the small ( army main- ' tained the navy's line of communications. ' The height of Achi Baba was to be stormed ! within a few hours of the landing; the French were to advance along the Asiatic side; the Australasians were to get across to

Maidos. . Alas, none of these estimates of Turkish opposition proved correct. The French had to bo hastily withdrawn, and the Australasians fared so ill and met with such strenuous and obstinate resistance from irr mensely superior forces that before midnight of the day of landing General Hamilton had suddenly and momentarily to decide whether they should be re-embarked. Even on the second day the transports sent off their boats in readiness to bring baok the Anzacs. LONDON ORDERS ATTACK. "We had stumbled upon a gigantic task with a small force of 70,000. But those in London held a theory. It was that an adventure of this kind must be pushed on with great speed, if it was to be proceeded with at all. And so General Hamilton received orders to throw force after force against Achi Baba—to take it while momentum was in our possession, and before the Turks had time to dig in up to their necks. Reinforcements were landed, until in a few days we had nearly 120,000 men ;n the force. Assault after assault was made, and on May 8 that great battle in vhich M'Cay's second brigade did such glorious work was fought _ and lost. It was the moment to reconsider the whole position. But further expensive assaults were made on the hill, now so fortified as to be impregnable—" you can take it with a camcra, no other way," was the jibe of a captured Turk officer at this time —until the end of June arrived, and Achi Baba was given up as hopeless. It was then that Suvla Bay was discussed. Probably everybody expected the new landing, for which the British Cabinet had sent out five divisions—two more than Hamilton asked for, to bo on the safe side —to take place north of the lines of Bulair. It did not do so, because the force was insufficient. Again we had underestimated. SUVLA FAILURE EXPLAINED. As to the failure at Suvla, much will be written in days to come. At present it can only be said that it was partly a failure of staff, partly of officers, partly of troops. Combined with all was a distinct element of bad luck. The Turks had a day out. Though surprised by the landing, they soon galloped round artillery, and had our Kitchener Army men (three divisions) and Territorials (two divisions) under heavy shraonel fire. They deflected reinforcements to " toss the English into the Straits." They scattered snipers everywhere, behind and before us. And they managed, at a critical moment, led by a German cavalary officer, to sweep the New Zealanders off Chunuk Bair, where 400 had attained a slender perch .after deadly fighting. SUCCESS WAS IN SIGHT. There will always be doubt as to whether we could have got right across, as wo planned to, and taken those heights dominating the only roads up which supplies could be taken to the main Turkish armies. The Australasian opinion is almost unanimous that the task was possible, and was not far from success. But tho staff work was so faulty that we knew ' itile of the country, and many brigadiers knew nothing of their objective until they had landed, when advancc was neccesarily delayed, and in more than ono serious case made in a wholly wrong direction. The troops were raw, untried, somewhat less than their average in moral and

physique, owing to the long, cramped voyage on the troopships; and they liad gone ashore with only one bottle of water cuch, and were thirsty almost before they began -their arduous straining 'work of the day. They had to fight thirst as well as Turks —thirst of a bitter and weakening character during three of the hottest days of the year. So the advance was short, the element ot surprise was lost, and not even a great assault on August 21 by the glorious 29th Division and the' Yeomanry could dislodge tho Turks, who remain strongly entrenched, to this day, still overlooking our poor exposed positions on the flats.