GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13987, 25 November 1919, Page 5

GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN.

"SUPREME FOLLY." COLONEL BEPINGTON'S OPINION. (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Associacion) LONDON, Monday. Colonel Kepington, writing in the "Morning Post," says: —"It was abvious that the seizure of the Dardanelles was an object of first-class importance, biit it was also obvious that the enemy would defend it to the last. We should haive carefully studied the operations, which we did not. We knocked hard at the Turkish door to wflrn them of our coming, and sent General lan Hamilton after an hour'js vague talk with Lord Kitchener. General Hamilton must often have made longer or better preparations for a week's covert shooting than he was enabled to make for the Dardanelles. To attempt such a great adventure while we were outmatched in France was an act of supreme folly. "It was really a rank injustice to attribute the failure at the Dardanelles to the individual faults of officers, when the original fault was perpetrated in London. The new divisions sent to Suvla were considered magnificent material, but were totally lacking in war experience, and were commanded .by generals who, with one or two exceptions/had passed their prime. The Commission had done its work fearlessly and honestly according to its lights, but it cannot claim professional authority to adjudicate upon battles."