The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (95 page)

Roger Keyes, John de Robeck, and Ian Hamilton

Heavy seas kept de Robeck’s fleet idle on March 19, but he and Keyes put the time to good use; on the following day the admiral reported to Churchill that sixty-two destroyers were being converted into mine-sweepers, all to be crewed by bluejacket volunteers, and steel nets would soon be laid across the strait to catch any loose mines. The French, de Robeck reported to London, had been “quite undismayed by their loss.” On all Allied warships “officers and men are only anxious to re-engage the enemy.” He ended: “It is hoped to be in a position to commence operations in three or four days.” Keyes wrote his wife from the
Queen Elizabeth:
“I am spoiling to have at it again.” The War Council had authorized Churchill to tell de Robeck that he could “continue the operations against the Dardanelles” provided he thought it “fit.” Clearly he did, but the first lord goaded him just the same: “
Queen
and
Implacable
should join you very soon; and
London
and
Prince of Wales
sail tonight…. It appears important not to let the forts be repaired or to encourage enemy by an apparent suspension of the operations. Ample supplies of 15-inch ammunition are available for indirect fire of
Queen Elizabeth
across the peninsula.”
¹⁰¹

Everything was proceeding smoothly until Hamilton sailed up on the
Phaeton,
studied the Gallipoli shore through field glasses, ventured into the mouth of the Dardanelles, and then sailed off to establish his headquarters on Lemnos. De Robeck wrote him there: “We are all ready for another go, and not the least beaten or down-hearted.” The general took another view. He inspected the crippled
Inflexible,
talked to several army officers on the island, and telegraphed Kitchener: “I am most reluctantly driven to the conclusion that the straits are not likely to be forced by battleships, as at one time seemed probable, and that, if my troops are to take part, it will not take the subsidiary form anticipated. The Army’s part will be more than mere landing parties to destroy forts; it must be a deliberate and prepared military operation, carried out at full strength, so as to open a passage for the Navy.” This was an extraordinary rush to judgment. He hadn’t seen the Narrows, was unaware of the devastation there, and knew almost nothing about the capabilities of huge naval guns. Kitchener replied immediately: “You know my views, that the Dardanelles must be forced.” If troops were needed “to clear the way,” such operations, he said, “must be carried through.” On March 22, four days after the ship-to-shore fight in the Narrows, de Robeck anchored off the island to confer with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force’s commander in chief, who at this point had no army, no plan, but a strong distrust of swift action. Afterward they disagreed on who had said what. According to the general: “The moment he sat down de Robeck told us that he was now quite clear
he could not get through without the help of all my troops.
” According to the admiral, Hamilton spoke first, and having “heard his proposals, I now considered a combined operation essential to obtain great results and object of campaign…. To attack Narrows now with Fleet would be a mistake, as it would jeopardize the execution of a bigger and better scheme.”
¹⁰²

De Robeck’s account is more convincing—until now he had never considered discontinuing his assault—but doubtless he was easily seduced. To naval officers who had risen to flag rank during the long peace, losing ships was a crime, and he had already blurted out to Keyes that he felt guilty. Moreover, he knew that Fisher, the very symbol of the Royal Navy, disapproved of the Dardanelles operation. Churchill backed it, but Churchill was a politician; politicians moved from one ministerial post to another, or dropped out of the cabinet altogether. At the Admiralty, first lords came and went, while the Royal Navy lasted forever. If the army wanted to take over here, de Robeck could only feel a sense of deliverance. He asked Hamilton if the troops would be put ashore on Bulair Isthmus at the top of the peninsula. No, said Hamilton, he would land on the southern tip and fight his way up from there. De Robeck asked when. Hamilton said he needed a little over three weeks. In that case, the admiral said, he would suspend his own drive until the fighting began on Gallipoli. He telegraphed the Admiralty that the army “will not be in a position to undertake any military operations before 14th April…. It appears better to prepare a decisive effort about the middle of April rather than risk a great deal for what may possibly be only a partial solution.”
¹⁰³

Keyes felt “fearfully disappointed and unhappy.” Churchill was dumbfounded. As he later testified, he believed “that we were separated by very little from success. Although at the outset I should have rejoiced at the provision of an army, I saw the disadvantages which would attend its employment after what had happened…. Landing and storming the Gallipoli Peninsula, now that the Turks were fully alarmed, seemed a formidable business. It seemed to me a far more serious undertaking than the naval attack. It would commit us irrevocably if it failed, in a way no naval attack could have done. The risk was greater. The stakes were far higher… and above all I feared the inevitable delay.” Fisher, backed by Admirals Sir Arthur Wilson and Sir Henry Jackson, disagreed. Up to this point, they said, they had supported the attempt to force the strait because the commander on the spot had recommended it. But now that de Robeck and Hamilton had agreed on a joint effort, the Admiralty, in Fisher’s words, was “bound to accept their view.” Churchill later recalled: “For the first time since the war began, high words were used around the octagonal table.” He drafted a telegram to de Robeck, ordering him to break through to the Sea of Marmara, but it was never sent, because he had to consult the War Council first, and although Asquith—and Kitchener—agreed with him, the prime minister refused to overrule three distinguished admirals.
¹⁰⁴

The next day Winston drafted a personal telegram to de Robeck. Fisher wrote him:
“Send no more telegrams! Let it alone!”
It went out anyway. “What has happened since the 21st,” he asked, “to make you alter your intention of renewing the attack as soon as the weather is favourable?” The answer was ambiguous. Churchill lowered his sights, hoping that the delay would be temporary. Then events conspired against him. Word reached London from Constantinople that “during the last fortnight about 150 mines, any amount of ammunition, guns, &c, have been coming through Roumania from Germany…. The ammunition comes through quite openly, and there is nothing to prevent the Germans from bringing in even big guns.” To Winston this was a spur to instant action. The admirals, on the other hand, argued that it meant greater danger for their ships in the Dardanelles. Churchill urged Grey to protest this abuse of Rumanian neutrality. Grey said it would be useless. Then, on Friday, March 26, the British consul general cabled from Rotterdam that Dutch troops were massing on their frontiers; a German invasion was expected hourly. It was a false alarm, but it triggered anxiety about the strength of the Home Fleet. The second, third, and fourth sea lords took the extraordinary step of demanding written assurance from Fisher that the force in Scapa Flow was adequate to meet all challenges. Captain Richmond was spreading his poison in the Admiralty. The first lord’s “personal vanity,” he wrote typically, “occupies so large a place in the arrangements that the operation is either a fiasco or is most wasteful in lives or matériel—or both.” Finally, Grey urged caution. Italy was on the verge of declaring war on Germany. An unsuccessful attempt to break through the Narrows might discourage it.
¹⁰⁵

Shortly before dawn on Saturday a long message from de Robeck reached the Admiralty. As a study in stagnation it is a remarkable document. Silencing the forts, he said, would require “an excessive expenditure of ammunition,” which “cannot be spared.” Complete conquest of the blockhouses on either side of the strait would require “demolishing parties. To cover these parties at the Narrows is a task General Hamilton is not prepared to undertake and I fully concur with his view.” The “mine menace” was “even greater than anticipated.” As he saw it, “the result of a Naval action alone might in my opinion be a brilliant success or quite indecisive.” It was a risk, and he wasn’t prepared to take it when the army could “occupy the Peninsula which would open up the Strait as guns on Asiatic side can be dominated from the European shore sufficiently to permit ships to pass through.” He concluded: “With Gallipoli Peninsula held by our Army and Squadron through Dardanelles our success would be assured. The delay possibly of a fortnight will allow co-operation which would really prove factor that will reduce length of time necessary to complete the campaign in Sea of Marmara and occupy Constantinople.”
¹⁰⁶

When Kitchener told the War Council that the army was now prepared to take over the job of opening the Dardanelles, Winston knew he was beaten. Though he felt, as he said, “grief-stricken,” he gracefully replied to de Robeck: “I had hoped that it would be possible to achieve the result according to original plan without involving the Army, but the reasons you give make it clear that a combined operation is now indispensable…. All your proposals will therefore be approved.” De Robeck now became Hamilton’s subordinate, providing naval support when and where requested. Every subsequent decision in the theater was made by either Kitchener or Hamilton. The navy never again tried to sweep mines, reduce forts, or break through the Narrows to the Sea of Marmara. Day by day the vision of victory receded, though Churchill was slow to abandon hope. On April 29 Sir George Riddell found him studying a map. In his diary Riddell set down Winston’s remarks. “This,” Churchill had said, “is one of the great campaigns of history. Think what Constantinople is to the East. It is more than London, Paris, and Berlin rolled into one are to the West. Think how it has dominated the East. Think what its fall will mean. Think how it will affect Bulgaria, Greece, Rumania, and Italy, who have already been affected by what has taken place. You cannot win this war by sitting still. We are merely using our surplus ships in the Dardanelles. Most of them are old vessels. The ammunition, even the rifle ammunition, is different from that which we are using in France—an older type—so there is no loss of power there.” Then he said: “I am not responsible for the Expedition…. I do not shirk responsibility, but it is untrue to say that I have done this off my own bat.”
¹⁰⁷

Nevertheless, the British public believed he had done it all off his own bat. Most of them think so today.

S
ilence descended upon the strait. As the weeks passed, the Turks realized that they had been granted a reprieve. In time they persuaded themselves that they had triumphed. The Westerners, to whom they had felt inferior, had been routed. Islamic xenophobia stirred in them; they wanted to express their savage new strength on any available enemy. The Armenians were available. They were Christians, they were clever, they prospered as moneylenders in cities and villages, and they were suspected of sympathizing with the Russians. Rumors spread. They were sending information to the czar’s troops, it was said; they were smuggling in arms and plotting a revolt. So a pogrom began. The men were tortured and shot; the women were recruited for harems; the very young and very old were sent down the roads to Syria, Persia, and Mesopotamia, where robbers stripped them naked and left them to die of hunger and exposure. Before it was over, 750,000 Armenians were dead.

Barbarism was one expression of the new Turkish mood. Another, which boded ill for Hamilton’s troops, was the soaring morale of the
askar
, or private soldier. The
askari
were in a fighting temper, and they knew where they were going to fight; Turkish spies were active in Cairo, watching British officers scour shops for Gallipoli guidebooks. British soldiers cruising in the waters off the peninsula watched the entrenchments grow there. Every morning found them higher and wider. By the middle of April—Hamilton had set his landing date back eleven days—Von Sanders had sixty thousand men behind barbed wire and machine guns, backed by heavy Skoda artillery from Bohemia. His field general would be Mustapha Kemal. Von Sanders was aware of Kemal’s Germanophobia, but he also knew he was fiercely patriotic and the best combat commander in the country. Both leaders were exceptionally talented. Their troops were ready. And they had plenty of time; five precious weeks intervened between the break-off of de Robeck’s naval attack and the arrival of Hamilton’s transports off the peninsula.