The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (96 page)

Gallipoli offers the invader four beaches: Bulair, at the neck, where de Robeck wanted Hamilton to land; Suvla Bay, halfway down the peninsula; Ari Burnu, south of there; and at Cape Helles, on the toe, where Royal Marines had walked in complete safety a month earlier. Five major landings were made on the cape, near the village of Sedd-el-Bahr. Casualties were heavy. A naval aviator flying overhead looked down on the Aegean, usually a brilliant shade of blue. He saw a strip “absolutely red with blood… a horrible sight to see” between the beach and fifty yards out.
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The Anzacs were supposed to come ashore at Gaba Tepe, in the vicinity of Ari Burnu. A navigation error put them a mile to the north, where they faced precipitous cliffs from whose scrub-covered ridges the Turks could deliver a murderous, scything fire. Ian Hamilton remained at sea, riding around in the conning tower of the
Queen Elizabeth,
out of touch with his shore commanders and his staff. He refused to intervene, even when it became apparent that everything had gone wrong; officers on the spot, he said, were better qualified to make decisions. They, playing for safety, tried to establish beachheads—venturing inland was considered either impossible or too hazardous—while each evening their commander in chief, before retiring to his bunk on the battleship, wrote five-thousand-word entries in his diary, reflecting upon the mysteries and ironies of life.

Later another landing was made at Suvla. It was the same story. The force commander was an elderly, ailing officer who had made his reputation as a teacher of military history and had never commanded troops in war. Coming ashore, he sprained his knee. He sent word to Hamilton that “if the enemy proves to be holding a strong line of continuous entrenchments I shall be unable to dislodge him till more guns are landed. All the teaching of the campaign in France proves that continuous trenches cannot be attacked without the assistance of large numbers of howitzers.”
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There were no trenches and very few Turks. He had twenty thousand men ashore. Still, he was reluctant to advance. Following his commander in chief’s example, he returned to his ship and spent a safe, comfortable night aboard. Meanwhile, Mustapha Kemal arrived and occupied the heights overlooking the beach.

Winston’s brother, Jack, who had seen action as a major at Ypres and was now serving on Hamilton’s staff, wrote him from Helles that Gallipoli was “siege warfare again as in France. Trenches and wire beautifully covered by machine gun fire are the order of the day. Terrific artillery fire against invulnerable trenches and then attempts to make frontal attacks in the face of awful musketry fire, are the only tactics that can be employed.” In the first month Hamilton lost forty-five thousand men. The pattern continued. It was over-the-top carnage, with no gains of consequence. Jack wrote: “I don’t think another big push will be attempted until reinforcements arrive. We shall have to dig in and await the Turks’ attacks.” Gallipoli had become a mere extension of the deadlock on the western front. Hamilton knew it. He telegraphed Kitchener that he was watching his attack “degenerate into trench warfare with its resultant slowness.”
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“Damn the Dardanelles,” said Fisher. “They will be our grave.” Churchill had told Riddell that “Fisher and I have a perfect understanding.” In fact, they had no such thing. The old admiral had raised no objections to Hamilton’s landings, but the general’s subsequent frustration had depressed him. Winston kept trying to stir Fisher’s fighting spirit. “It is clear,” he wrote him on May 3, “that the favourable turn to our affairs in S. E. Europe arose from the initial success of our attack on the Dardanelles, was checked by the repulse of the 18th, & can only be restored by the general success of the operation. It is thus necessary to fight a battle, (a thing wh has often happened before in war) & abide the consequences whatever they may be.” The old salt was unconvinced. And he was beginning to recite his litany of complaints to outsiders. One afternoon at No. 10 Margot Asquith faced him down. She bluntly told him: “You know you have talked too much—all London knows you are against the Dardanelles expedition. Why didn’t you resign?” He muttered: “It’s a lie—I’ve seen no one, been nowhere, I’m far too busy.” But it was true. Word of the rift at the Admiralty had reached back-benchers in the House. An MP asked “whether Lord Fisher was consulted with regard to the March action on the Dardanelles by the Fleet; and whether he expressed the opinion that the attack ought not to be made in the circumstances in which it was made.” Winston replied: “If the insinuation contained in the question were correct Lord Fisher would not now be at the Admiralty.” Asquith had asked Churchill to carry on secret negotiations with the Italians on the terms under which they would enter the war against Germany. This entailed commuting to Paris, and during one of his absences Clementine, hoping to perk up the old salt, invited him to lunch at Admiralty House. It went well until, after Clementine thought he had left, she found him lurking in a corridor. She asked: “What is it?” He said: “You are a foolish woman. All the time you think Winston’s with Sir John French he is in Paris with his mistress.” Clementine was speechless. She was convinced Fisher was losing his mind. When Churchill returned, she told him what had happened. Fisher, she said, had been “as nervous as a kitten.”
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In Hamilton’s failure Roger Keyes saw opportunity. Four days after this remarkable scene in London, the commodore persuaded de Robeck to convene all his admirals in the
Queen Elizabeth
’s wardroom. There he unveiled a new plan of naval attack. Leaving older battleships to shield the army’s beachheads, the destroyers which had been refitted as minesweepers would lead the Allies’ most powerful dreadnoughts through the Narrows. It would be accomplished in a single day. All those present, including de Robeck, enthusiastically endorsed the operation; Guépratte telegraphed his minister of marine:
“A fin d’assister l’Armée dans son action énergique et rude, nous méditons vive action flotte dans détroit avec attaque des forts. Dans ces conditions il me faut mes cuirassés
Suffren, Charlemagne, Gaulois
dans le plus bref délai possible
.”
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The plan was forwarded to London for approval, which they took for granted. Fisher didn’t like it, of course; he wanted no part of any further action in the strait. And Churchill, from whom one would expect support, had a problem. Assuming that all hopes of forcing the Dardanelles had been abandoned, he had agreed to provide Italy with four battleships and four cruisers from de Robeck’s fleet. Yet the idea of reaching Constantinople was still exciting. He believed something could be worked out. He was arguing the issue with Fisher when an aide brought them word that a daring Turkish submarine commander had sunk H.M.S.
Goliath
south of the Narrows.

The loss could be borne.
Goliath
was no Goliath. She was a small, senectuous battleship which had been launched when Victoria was still Queen. But the presence of an enemy submarine in these waters frightened Fisher. There might be others. (There weren’t.) He insisted that
Queen Elizabeth
leave the Mediterranean at once. To appease him, Winston agreed. The meeting of the War Council the next day, on Friday, May 14, was, in Churchill’s word, “sulphurous.” Kitchener was infuriated. He had sent an army to Gallipoli with the understanding that the navy would force the Dardanelles, he raged; the first lord had enticed him by dwelling upon “the marvelous potentialities of the
Queen Elizabeth,
” and now Hamilton was being left in the lurch. K of K’s “habitual composure in trying ordeals left him,” Winston wrote. “He protested vehemently against what he considered the desertion of the army at its most critical moment.” At this, Fisher flared up. The ship “will come home,” he declared; “she will come home at once; she will come home tonight or I shall walk out of the Admiralty then and there.” He added that he was “against the Dardanelles and have been all along.” That enraged Churchill. “The First Sea Lord,” he retorted, “has agreed to every executive telegram on which the operations have been conducted.” Sending out the
Elizabeth,
indeed, had been his idea. The wounding words flew back and forth, and Asquith couldn’t stem them. To calm Fisher, the prime minister, on Hankey’s advice, had promised the old admiral on Tuesday that no action would be taken in the eastern Mediterranean without his consent. The
Elizabeth
would be recalled; two battleships,
Exmouth
and
Venerable
, would replace her.
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Back at the Admiralty that evening Winston went over the details with Fisher in the first sea lord’s office. They reviewed the entire operation. New orders would be drawn up for de Robeck. Churchill confined his recommendations to matters he knew the old admiral would accept. As he left, an aide heard him say: “Well, good night, Fisher. We have settled everything, and you must go home and have a good night’s rest. Things will look brighter in the morning and we’ll pull the thing through together.” Working later, as was his custom, he put everything in writing. At the last moment he added two submarines, which de Robeck had requested, to the Dardanelles naval reinforcements. He left the papers for the first sea lord with a note: “I send this to you before marking it to others in order that if any point arises we can discuss it. I hope you will agree.”
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At nine Saturday morning, May 15, he called at the Foreign Office to put the final touches on the Italian treaty. He was returning across the Horse Guards when his private naval secretary hurried up and said: “Fisher has resigned, and I think he means it this time.” He handed him the brief note from the first sea lord: “After further anxious reflection,” it began, “I have come to the regretted conclusion I am unable to remain any more as your colleague…. As you truly said yesterday I am in the position of constantly veto-ing your proposals. This is not fair to you besides being extremely distasteful to me. I am off to Scotland to avoid all questionings.” Churchill wasn’t perturbed; Fisher had submitted eight previous resignations. But when he discovered that he was nowhere to be found—that he had literally deserted—Winston took the letter to No. 10. Angered, Asquith instantly wrote Fisher: “In the King’s name, I order you to return to your post.” Delivering this command was another matter. That afternoon the old admiral was run to ground in a dingy Charing Cross hotel room. After a long argument, he agreed to see the prime minister. Lloyd George, encountering him in the No. 10 waiting room, was struck by the “dour change in him…. A combative grimness had taken the place of his usual genial greeting; the lower lip of his set mouth was thrust forward, and the droop at the corner was more marked than usual. His curiously Oriental features were more than ever those in an Eastern temple, with a sinister frown. ‘I have resigned!’ was his greeting, and on my inquiring the reason he replied, ‘I can stand it no longer.’ ” He had made up his mind, he said, “to take no further part in the Dardanelles foolishness.” Lloyd George begged him to wait until Monday, when he could put his grievances before the War Council. Fisher refused to wait “another hour.” He told the prime minister the same thing. After a long argument, Asquith wrung from him a promise to remain in London, but the old man flatly refused to withdraw his resignation, to return to the Admiralty, or to see Churchill.
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He went back into hiding. At 10:00
P.M.
a mutual friend brought him a letter from Winston, who was trying to find out what this was all about. The answer, in Fisher’s reply through their intermediary, was the two submarines. He wrote that “the series of fresh naval arrangements you sent me yesterday morning convinced me that the time had arrived for me to make a final decision—there being much more in those proposals than had occurred to me the previous evening when you suggested some of them.” This was absurd, of course; the vessels were insignificant, and Churchill had offered to talk it over. But Fisher had been looking for an excuse, and his hand shook as he scrawled on: “
YOU ARE BENT ON FORCING THE DARDANELLES AND NOTHING WILL TURN YOU FROM IT—NOTHING
—I know you so well!…
You will remain
and
I SHALL GO
—It is better so…. You say with much feeling that
‘it will be a very great grief to you to part from me.
’ I am certain you know in your heart no one has ever been more faithful to you than I have since I joined you last October.
I have worked my very hardest
.” He moved to the Ritz and wrote Reginald McKenna, Winston’s predecessor at the Admiralty, that while he wouldn’t quote Churchill’s letter, “it absolutely
CONVINCES
me that I am right in my
UNALTERABLE DECISION
to resign!
In fact I have resigned!
… At every turn he will be thinking of the military and not the naval side—
he never has done otherwise.
His heart is ashore, not afloat!
The joy of his life is to be 50 yards from a German trench!
… I am no longer First Sea Lord.
There is no compromise possible!
”
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Well, there was, and he was angling for it. He very much wanted to be back at the Admiralty, but with dictatorial powers. This surfaced in his subsequent attempts to negotiate with Asquith. He would serve under McKenna or Grey, he said, but not Churchill or Balfour. Admiral Wilson must leave the Admiralty, Fisher must be empowered to appoint his own Admiralty Board, the first lord would “be absolutely restricted to policy and parliamentary procedure,” and “I shall have complete professional charge of the war at sea, together with the absolute sole disposition of the Fleet and the appointment of all officers of all ranks whatsoever, and absolutely untrammelled sole command of all the sea forces whatsoever.” In a postscript he added that these conditions “must be published verbatim so that the Fleet may know my position.” Hankey, to whom he delivered these terms, told him they were impossible. Asquith said the old man was either “traitorous” or “unhinged.” Fisher then sent word of his resignation to Bonar Law. That was malicious. His sole motive now was to ruin Churchill.
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