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In Gallipoli a thunder-bolt struck the powder-magazine, and five hundred workmen were blown into the air. The Kiagadehane brook, in a single night, swelled to such an extent as to inundate the whole valley of Sweet Waters, and a whole park of artillery was swept away by the flood.
No Commander enjoys parting with his troops and Maxwell may play on one of the tenderest spots in K.'s adamantine heart by telling him his darling Egypt will be endangered; still it is only right to give him fair warning. Lord Hindlip, King's Messenger, has brought us our mails. 28th April, 1915. H.M.S. "Queen Elizabeth." Off Gallipoli. At 9 a.m.
At the outbreak of war we had guns for eight divisions say 140,000 men. And there was no plant wherewith to make and keep up more than that supply. Yet guns had to be sent as fast as they could be made to France, Egypt, Gallipoli. How were the gunners at home to be trained? It was done, so to speak, with blood and tears.
The Turks were directed by the German general Liman von Sanders, and he expected the landing to be attempted near Bulair on the flat and narrow isthmus which joined the Gallipoli Peninsula to the mainland.
Erzerum was reckoned the strongest fortress in the Turkish Empire, but amid the distractions of the Dardanelles and Mesopotamian campaigns it had escaped proper attention from the Turks and their German experts, and the Grand Duke profited by the fact that Turkish troops, relieved from the pressure at Gallipoli, were sent to Kut and not to the Caucasus.
"But assuming that reinforcements can only reach me in echelon of divisions I have decided that the best policy would be to adhere to my original plan of endeavouring to turn the enemy's right at Anzac with the first three divisions and to gain a position from Gaba Tepe to Maidos. By these means I should hope to compel the surrender of the whole Gallipoli Army.
But no money can save the Russians at Constantinople, or the "little things" which Wrangel's army leaves behind them. Refugee men and women ought, perhaps, to be fruitless, but they are not. The birthrate at Gallipoli and Constantinople is high, and the lying-in hospitals are full.
Even, however, in the secluded Headquarters at Bruce's Ravine I could not keep my health, and Hummel's art was unavailing. The average soldier on Gallipoli broke down after a month or two. Comparatively few endured more than three months. Few of the sick came back to Turkey. Some, like my first batman Dinsdale, died in hospital at Alexandria or in Malta.
Again in this case, as in that of the proposal of Enver Pasha to send a large number of allied citizens to the bombardment area of Gallipoli as a reprisal, it was Mr. Morgenthau, the American Ambassador at Constantinople, who followed up his protest by real action. He threw himself heart and soul into the work of softening the lot of the unfortunate Armenians.
His management of our mobilisation was beyond praise. The quartermaster, Major James Scott, was an old Manchester Regiment man, with a record of good work at Ladysmith and Elandslaagte. Of the company officers and N.C.O.'s, there is no need to add here to the tribute which will be theirs in any detailed history of Gallipoli.
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