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In the midst of many graves, identified only by numbers, a black cross recalls the memory of Mundy, one of our gallant Company Sergeant-Majors. On the 30th December 1915 I left Alexandria for the Dardanelles on the Arcadian, Sir Ian Hamilton's old ship, once most luxurious of steam yachts but destined to be torpedoed on the 15th April 1917 in these same waters.
"I assure you that in our sea there will be nothing of that sort. People who ought to know have told me so.... If that had not been the case, I should not have promised to give them aid." He affirmed this several times in good faith, with absolute confidence in the people who had given him their promise. "They will sink, if they can, the ships of the Allies that are in the Dardanelles.
By this treaty, called the treaty of Adrianople, Turkey paid Russia twenty-nine millions of dollars to defray the expenses of the war, opened the Dardanelles to the free navigation of all Russian merchant ships, and engaged not to maintain any fortified posts on the north of the Danube. In July, 1830, the Poles rose in a general insurrection, endeavoring to shake off the Russian yoke.
Ashmead-Bartlett was the man selected for the unique task. His dispatches from the Dardanelles were censored on the spot and again in London, so they did not possess much information of direct value. It was when he returned to London and was in a degree free from restraint that he wrote frankly.
Russian ships, laden with the luxuries of the Mediterranean, passed through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, and landed their precious freights upon the shores of Azof, from whence they were transported into the heart of Russia, thus opening a very lucrative commerce.
The question, therefore, whether men-of-war shall be permitted to pass the Dardanelles in times of peace, although by no means unimportant, is to my way of thinking not sufficiently important to inflame Europe. The question whether the possession of the Dardanelles shall be shifted to other owners is entirely different.
If the Army has to be used, whether on the Bosphorus or at the Dardanelles, I am to bear in mind his order that no serious operation is to take place until the whole of my force is complete; ready; concentrated and on the spot. No piecemeal attack is to be made. If we do start fighting, once we have started we are to burn our boats.
The successful defense of the Dardanelles, one of the most brilliantly conducted defensive operations of the entire war, was primarily due to the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting uniforms, hastily trained by German drillmasters, set down in the trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them.
The stew for dinner to-day was better than the stew yesterday, but I could not take my usual. I am fed up with anxiousness. Kindly write by return. Why do you never put any X X X in your letters? Do you want me to stop putting them in mine? Your aff. intended, M. ROBINSON. P.S. It is not to be the Dardanelles, but we are likely going to Flanders next week. Excuse writing and spelling as usual.
Lord Salisbury, vacillating, as is his way, and under persuasion of the powers opposed to his action, consented to delay and negotiate, thus giving the Sultan time to prepare the defenses of the Dardanelles, making the coup de main, possible at first, then impossible, and necessitating serious naval operations, which were likely to involve considerable losses if the pressure at Constantinople were to be successful.
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