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The British and French, he told us, were all to be compelled, at the point of the sword, to turn Muhammadan, and France was being scoured that minute for women to grace the harems of the kaiser and his sons and generals, all of whom had long ago accepted Islam. The kaiser, indeed, had become the new chief of Islam. I asked him about the fighting in Gallipoli, and lie said that was a bagatelle.
Ninian and I have been dining together, and as he's going down to Boveyhayne to-morrow, I thought I might as well write to you because I shan't see you again for a while. I'm off to Gallipoli in a day or two. I dined with Roger and Rachel last night, and they told me that you looked rather pipped before you went to Devonshire. I hope you'll soon be all right again.
With his elect mind that saw right into the heart of things, he quickly unveiled the poetry and romance of Britain's great enterprise at Gallipoli. He crowded all his young officers into his private room for a lecture on the campaign that was calling them.
In our ranks were to be found many men of middle age, unused to active life, and many boys whose physique had not had time to respond to military training. Some had but recently joined us and were not acclimatised, others had not recovered their strength after the dysentery of Gallipoli. Roads or canteens there were none.
Cala'bria, or Messa'pia, is the eastern tongue of land which terminates at Cape Japy'gium, Santa Maria; it was almost wholly occupied by Grecian colonies. The chief towns were Brundu'sium, Brindisi: Callipolis, Gallipoli: and Taren'tum. The islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, which are now reckoned as appertaining to Italy, were by the Romans considered separate provinces.
Just as he told us that our day was the day and our generation the generation, so now he set out to assure us that Gallipoli was the front. "If you'll only get at the IDEAS behind what's going on at the Helles beaches," he declared, with a rap on the table, "you'll be thrilled, boys."
So the punishment fell on the innocent as well as the guilty, on the Bahaites as well as the Ezelites. The Bahaites were put on board ship at Gallipoli. A full account is given by Abbas Effendi's sister of the preceding events. It gives one a most touching idea of the deep devotion attracted by the magnetic personalities of the Leader and his son.
German diplomacy succeeded in enlisting Bulgaria. Serbia was crushed. Her gallant army fled over the mountains after heroic resistance and reached the Adriatic, but as a mob rather than as an army. As for the Gallipoli troops, December saw them hurriedly withdrawn after great losses and terrible suffering. Here at last was a solid gain, a real victory after two great disappointments.
But General Townshend's casualties were heavy, and his available reinforcements were neither sufficiently numerous nor at hand. The pick of the Turkish army released by our withdrawal from Gallipoli, had poured down to reinforce the enemy, and General Townshend had no alternative but to beat a hasty retreat. Accordingly, he fell back to Kut el Amara.
It was the first of a series of visits, which, before we left Gallipoli, were renewed almost every hour, of dialogues deserving a better immortalization than can be given here.
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