Gallipoli Diary. Ian Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ to the Dardanelles in scribbling. Wrote my first epistle to K., using for the first time the formal "Dear Lord Kitchener." My letters to him will have to be formal, and dull also, as he may hand them around. I begin, "I have just sent you off a cable giving my first impressions of the situation, and am now steaming in company with Generals d'Amade and Paris to inspect the North-western coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula." I tell him that the real place "looks a much tougher nut to crack than it did over the map,"—I say that his "impression that the ground between Cape Helles and Krithia was clear of the enemy," was mistaken. "Not a bit of it." I say, "The Admiral tells me that there is a large number of men tucked away in the folds of the ground there, not to speak of several field Batteries." Therefore, I conclude, "If it eventually becomes necessary to take the Gallipoli Peninsula by military force, we shall have to proceed bit by bit." This will vex him no doubt. He likes plans to move as fast as his own wishes and is apt to forget, or to pretend he has forgotten, that swiftness in war comes from slow preparations. It is fairer to tell K. this now, when the question has not yet arisen, than hereafter if it does then arise.

      Passing the mouth of the Dardanelles we got a wonderful view of the stage whereon the Great Showman has caused so many of his amusing puppets to strut their tiny hour. For the purpose it stands matchless. No other panorama can touch it. There, Hero trimmed her little lamp; yonder the amorous breath of Leander changed to soft sea form. Far away to the Eastwards, painted in dim and lovely hues, lies Mount Ida. Just so, on the far horizon line she lay fair and still, when Hector fell and smoke from burning Troy blackened the mid-day sun. Against this enchanted background to deeds done by immortals and mortals as they struggled for ten long years five thousand years ago—stands forth formidably the Peninsula. Glowing with bright, springtime colours it sweeps upwards from the sea like the glacis of a giant's fortress.

      So we sailed on Northwards, giving a wide berth to the shore. When we got within a mile of the head of the Gulf of Saros, we turned, steering a South-westerly course, parallel to, and one to two miles distant from, the coastline. Then my first fears as to the outworks of the fortress were strengthened. The head of the Gulf is filled in with a horrible marsh. No landing there. Did we land far away to the Westward we must still march round the marsh, or else we must cross it on one single road whose long and easily destructible bridges we could see spanning the bog holes some three miles inland. Opposite the fortified lines we stood in to within easy field gun range, trusting that the Turks would not wish prematurely to disclose their artillery positions. So we managed a peep at close quarters, and were startled to see the ramifications and extent of the spider's web of deep, narrow trenches along the coast and on either front of the lines of Bulair. My Staff agree that they must have taken ten thousand men a month's hard work from dark to dawn. In advance of the trenches, Williams in the crow's nest reported that with his strong glasses he could pick out the glitter of wire over a wide expanse of ground. To the depth of a mile the whole Aegean slope of the neck of the Peninsula was scarred with spade work and it is clear to a tiro that to take these trenches would take from us a bigger toll of ammunition and life than we can afford: especially so seeing that we can only see one half of the theatre; the other half would have to be worked out of sight and support of our own ships and in view of the Turkish Fleet. Only one small dent in the rockbound coast offered a chance of landing but that was also heavily dug in. In a word, if Bulair had been the only way open to me and I had no alternative but to take it or wash my hands of the whole business, I should have to go right about turn and cable my master he had sent me on a fool's errand.

      Between Bulair and Suvla Bay the coastline was precipitous; high cliffs and no sort of creeks or beaches—impracticable. Suvla Bay itself seems a fine harbour but too far North were the aim to combine a landing there together with an attack on the Southern end of the Peninsula. Were we, on the other hand, to try to work the whole force ashore from Suvla Bay, the country is too big; it is the broadest part of the Peninsula; also, we should be too far from its waist and from the Narrows we wish to dominate. Merely to hold our line of Communications we should need a couple of Divisions. All the coast between Suvla Bay and for a little way South of Gaba Tepe seems feasible for landing. I mean we could get ashore on a calm day if there was no enemy. Gaba Tepe itself would be ideal, but, alas, the Turks are not blind; it is a mass of trenches and wire. Further, it must be well under fire of guns from Kilid Bahr plateau, and is entirely commanded by the high ridge to the North of it. To land there would be to enter a defile without first crowning the heights.

      Between Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles, the point of the Peninsula, the coastline consists of cliffs from 100 to 300 feet high. But there are, in many places, sandy strips at their base. Opinions differ but I believe myself the cliffs are not unclimbable. I thoroughly believe also in going for at least one spot that seems impracticable.

      Sailing Southwards we are becoming more and more conscious of the tremendous bombardment going on in the Straits. Now and then, too, we can see a huge shell hit the top of Achi Baba and turn it into the semblance of a volcano. Everyone excited and trying to look calm.

      At 4 p.m., precisely, we rounded Cape Helles. I had promised de Robeck not to take his fastest cruiser, fragile as an egg, into the actual Straits, but the Captain and the Commander (Cameron and Rosomore), were frightfully keen to see the fight, and I thought it fair to allow one mile as being the mouth of the Straits and not the Straits. Before we had covered that mile we found ourselves on the outskirts of—dream of my life—a naval battle! Nor did the reality pan out short of my hopes. Here it was; we had only to keep on at thirty knots; in one minute we should be in the thick of it; and who would be brave enough to cry halt!

      The world had gone mad; common sense was only moonshine after all; the elephant and the whale of Bismarckian parable were at it tooth and nail! Shells of all sizes flew hissing through the skies. Before my very eyes, the graves of those old Gods whom Christ had risen from the dead to destroy were shaking to the shock of Messrs. Armstrong's patent thunder bolts!

      Ever since the far-away days of Afghanistan and Majuba Hill friends have been fond of asking me what soldiers feel when death draws close up beside them. Before he charged in at Edgehill, Astley (if my memory serves me) exclaimed, "O, God, I've been too busy fixing up this battle to think much about you, but, for Heaven's sake, don't you go and forget about me," or words to that effect.

      The Yankee's prayer for fair play just as he joined issue with the grizzly bear gives another glimpse of these secrets between man and his Maker. As for myself, there are two moments; one when I think I would not miss the show for millions; another when I think "what an ass I am to be here"; and between these two moments there is a border land when the mind runs all about Life's workshop and tries to do one last bit of stock-taking.

      But the process can no more be fixed in the memory than the sequence of a dream when the dew is off the grass. All I remember is a sort of wonder:—why these incredible pains to seek out an amphibious battle ground whereon two sets of people who have no cause of quarrel can blow one another to atoms? Why are these Straits the cockpit of the world? What is it all about? What on earth has happened to sanity when the whale and elephant are locked in mortal combat making between them a picture which might be painted by one of H.M.'s Commissioners in Lunacy to decorate an asylum for homicides.

      Whizz—flop—bang—what an ass I am to be here. If we keep on another thirty seconds we are in for a visit to Davy Jones's Locker.

      Now above the Queen Elizabeth, making slowly backwards and forwards up in the neck of the Narrows, were other men-o'-war spitting tons of hot metal at the Turks. The Forts made no reply—or none that we could make out, either with our ears or with glasses. Perhaps there was an attempt; if so, it must have been very half-hearted. The enemy's fixed defences were silenced but the concealed mobile guns from the Peninsula and from Asia were far too busy and were having it all their own way.

      Close to us were steam trawlers and mine-sweepers steaming along with columns of spray spouting up close by them from falling field gun shells, with here and there a biggish fellow amongst them, probably a five or six inch field howitzer. One of them СКАЧАТЬ