Gallipoli Diary Volume II Part 21

Bishop Price, the Bishop of North China, and Charlie Burn, King's Messenger, dined. The quietness of the Bishop was remarkable.

Have cabled the S. of S. for War in answer to his enquiries about the causes of the sickness, and as to whether Maxwell is not holding up my share of troops in Egypt, saying:--(1) that "constant strain and infection by dust and flies" have caused the sickness but that the men are getting better; (2) that "we have been under the impression that drafts meant for us and due to us have been retained in Egypt; also, that men discharged fit from Hospitals have been held back, but I have represented this last point to Maxwell personally as I always feel I am not the person to gauge Maxwell's needs. On 27th September, I asked him to send up all available Australian--New Zealand Army Corps drafts and reinforcements, and, as you already know, am at present in telegraphic correspondence about these reinforcements coming straight here without being kept in Egypt for training at all."

At 10.40, after clearing my table, went with Ellison, Taylor, and Freddie on board H.M.S. _Lefroy_ (Commander Edwards) and steamed for "V"

Beach. Enjoyed a fine luncheon with Brulard and then started off for the trenches. At Morto Bay we were met by Captain de Bourbon, a big handsome man with the characteristic Bourbon cut of countenance. He took us first to the _chateau_ whence we worked down along the trenches to where our extreme right overlooks the Kerevez Dere. General Faukard was here and he thinks that we ought easily to get complete mastery of both sides of the Kerevez Dere as soon as we get the means and the permission to shove ahead again. When we do that the advance will let our Fleet another half mile up the Straits and the "spotting" for the s.h.i.+ps' guns will double their value in the Narrows. From the Kerevez Dere we worked along the fire trenches towards the French centre and then, getting to a sheltered strip of country, walked back across the open to the second line. From the second line we made our way, still across the open, to the third line, over a heather covered strip. No one ever moves here by daylight except in double quick time as there is always danger of drawing a sh.e.l.l either from Asia or from Achi Baba and so it was that "Let the dead bury the dead" had been the motto and that we met many corpses and skeletons. Merciful G.o.d, what home tragedies may centre in each of these sinister bundles. But it is the common lot--only quicker. Here, too, we found excavations made by the French into a burial ground believed to be of the date 2,500 B.C. The people of that golden age had the sentimental idea of being buried in couples in big jars. A strange notion of our Allies unburying quiet people who had enjoyed dreamless rest for 2,000 years whilst, within a few yards, their own dead still welter in the parching wind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CREMATING THE ENEMY DEAD _"Central News" phot._]

Had meant to run across and see Davies but time had slipped away and so we made tracks for H.M.S. _Lefroy_, and on back here to G.H.Q., where a letter from Callwell was laying in wait as a refresher after my fatigues.

Callwell begins by saying he encloses a doc.u.ment written by my late visitor, Mr. K. A. Murdoch, although "there are certain statements in this which are palpably false," and although Dawnay has pointed out to him at the War Office "a number of pa.s.sages in it which are wholly incorrect as matters of actual fact." He says, Lord K., "who has not had time to read it yet," thinks I ought to be given a chance of defending myself.

Callwell goes on to write about the Press Censors.h.i.+p and my plea for publicity and then says he dislikes the Salonika stunt "because I am not quite clear of where we are going to, and the immediate result at the present is to take away from you troops that you can ill spare." Also, because "we may be involving ourselves in operations on a great scale in the heart of the Balkans, the result of which it is very difficult to foresee."

G.o.dley dined. Captain Davidson, R.N., the Senior Naval Officer in harbour now, is a real G.o.dsend. He looks after us as if we were Admirals of the Fleet.

Have now read, marked, learnt and inwardly indigested Callwell's enclosure; viz., the letter written by Mr. K. A. Murdoch to the Prime Minister of Australia. Quite a Guy Fawkes epistle. Braithwaite is "more cordially detested in our forces than Enver Pasha." "You will trust me when I say that the work of the General Staff in Gallipoli is deplorable." "Sedition is talked round every tin of bully beef on the Peninsula." "You would refuse to believe that these men were really British soldiers ... the British physique is very much below that of the Turks. Indeed, it is quite obviously so. Our men have found it impossible to form a high opinion of the British K. men and Territorials. They are merely a lot of childlike youths, without strength to endure or brains to improve their conditions." "I shall always remember the stricken face of a young English Lieutenant when I told him he must make up his mind for a winter campaign." "I do not like to dictate this sentence, even for your eyes, but the fact is that after the first day at Suvla an order had to be issued to Officers to shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered in an advance."

Well, Well! I should not worry myself over the out-pourings of our late guest, who has evidently been made a tool of by some unscrupulous person, were it not that Mr. Asquith has clothed the said out-pourings in the t.i.tle, number, garb and colour of a verified and authentic State paper. He has actually had them printed on the famous duck's egg foolscap of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and under his authority, as President and Prime Minister, they have been circulated round the Government and all the notables of the Empire without any chance having been offered to me (or to K.) of defending the honour of British Officers or the good name of the British Rank and File. K. tells Callwell I should be given the opportunity of making a reply. Not having read it himself he has not yet grasped the fact that he also should have been given the opportunity of making a reply to the aspersions upon his selections. As for me, by the time my answer can get home and can be printed and circulated the slanders will have had over a month's start in England and very likely two months' start in Australia, where all who read them will naturally conclude their statements must have been tested before ever they were published in that impressive form.

Here we see an irresponsible statement by an ignorant man and I instinctively feel as if it were being used as one more weapon to force Asquith's hand and to ruin our last chance. I only hope it may not prove another case of, "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"

Certain aspects of this affair trouble my understanding. The covering note (dated 25th September) which encloses the letter to the Prime Minister of Australia (dated 23rd September) is addressed by Mr. Murdoch to Mr. Asquith by name. In that covering note Mr. Murdoch says, "I write with diffidence, and only at Mr. Lloyd George's request." Within three days (so great the urgency or pressure) Mr. Asquith causes--as he, President of the Committee of Imperial Defence, alone can cause--the covering note as well as the seven or eight thousand words of the letter to be printed and circulated round the big wigs of Politics, as well as (to judge by the co-incident hardening of the tone of this mail's papers) some of the Editors. Not one word to me as to Mr. Murdoch's qualifications or as to the truth or falsity of his statements, until these last have been a week in circulation. Then, I receive; first, a cable saying unofficial reports had come in censuring my General Staff and that I had better, therefore, let Braithwaite go; secondly, a cable asking me whether the absurd story of my having ordered my own soldiers to be shot "without mercy " is well-founded; thirdly, a bad last, the libellous letter itself.

Yet Mr. Asquith did know the paper contained _some_ falsehoods. He _may_ have attached weight to Mr. Murdoch's tale of the feelings of French soldiers at h.e.l.les (although he never found time to go there): he _may_ have believed Mr. Murdoch when he says that Sir John Maxwell "has a poor brain for his big position"; that "our men feel that their reputation is too sacred to leave in the hands of Maxwell"; that Sir William Birdwood "has not the fighting quality or big brain of a great General"; that General Spens was "a man broken on the Continent" (although he never was broken and never served on the Continent); that "Kitchener has a terrible task in getting pure work from the General Staff of the British Army, whose motives can never be pure, for they are unchangeably selfish"; that "from what I saw of the Turk, I am convinced he is ... a better man than those opposed to him" (although, actually, Mr. Murdoch saw nothing of the Turks). The P.M. may have taken these views at their face values: even, he _may_ have swallowed Mr. Murdoch's picture of the conscientious Altham "wallowing" in ice whilst wounded were expiring of heat within a few hundred yards; but _Mr. Asquith has seen the K. Army_ and, therefore, _he cannot have believed_ that these soldiers have suddenly been transformed into "merely a lot of childish youths without strength to endure or brains to improve their conditions."

Once more; these reckless sc.r.a.ps of hearsay would not be worth the paper they are printed on were it not that they are endorsed with the letters C.I.D., the stamp of the ministerial Holy of Holies. Only the Prime Minister himself, personally, can so consign a paper. Lord K. and I were both members of the C.I.D., and members of long standing. For the President to circularize our fellow members behind our backs with unverified accusations is a strange act, foreign to all my ideas of Mr.

Asquith. On this point Callwell is quite clear: the Murdoch letter was published to the C.I.D. on the 28th ult. and Callwell writes on the 2nd inst., and says Lord K. "has not had time to read it yet."[16] But nothing else is clear. In fact, the whole thing is foreign to all my ideas of Mr. Asquith. He does not need to work the C.I.D. oracle in this way. As P.M. he has only to speak the word. He does not work the Press oracle either: not his custom: also he likes K. The whole thing is a mystery, of which I can only say with Hamlet--"miching mallecho; it means mischief."

_14th October, 1915. Imbros._ Colder than ever. We are told that the winter will kill the flies and that with their death we shall all get hearty and well. Meanwhile, they have turned to winged limpets.

Being Mail day as well as rough, stuck to camp. My friend England sailed into harbour in the _Chelmer_ and came up to lunch. In the evening he took G.o.dley back to Anzac. Duncannon came to dinner. I have made him liaison officer with the French in place of de Putron who has gone to Salonika with Bailloud.

As to the Murdoch unpleasantness, I began an _expose_ to be sent to the Governor General of Australia; another to the Secretary of the C.I.D.

But Pollen, Braithwaite and Dawnay (the last of whom had been shown the doc.u.ment whilst he was at home, though he had said nothing to me about it) thought this was to make much ado about nothing. They cannot believe Lord K. will trouble himself about the matter any further and they think it best handled in lighter vein. Is K. still the demi-G.o.d, that is the question? Anyway, there is simply no time this Mail to deal with so many misstatements, so that has settled it.

"GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, "MEDTN. EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, _"14th October, 1915._

"DEAR CALLWELL,

"I have read Mr. Murdoch's letter with care, and I have tried to give it my most impartial consideration and not to allow myself in reply to be influenced in any way by the criticisms he may have felt himself bound to make upon myself personally.

"What does this letter amount to? Here we have a man, a journalist by profession, one who is quick to seize every point, and to coin epithets, which throw each fleeting impression into strongest relief. He comes armed with a natural and justifiably enthusiastic admiration for everything connected with the Commonwealth to which he belongs, and ready to retail to his Minister or his public anything that can contribute to show the troops they have sent in an heroic light.

"Here he obtains his first sight of war and of the horrors and hards.h.i.+ps inseparable from it. He finds men who have just been through some of the hardest fighting imaginable and who have suffered terrible losses; he finds probably that very many of those whom he hoped to see, certainly many of those of whose welfare their motherland would wish to hear, are killed, wounded or laid up with illness,--he finds all this and he becomes very deeply depressed. In such an atmosphere Mr. Murdoch composes his letter, a general a.n.a.lysis of which shows it to be divided, to my mind, into two separate strata.

"First an appreciation in burning terms of the spirit, the achievements, the physique and all soldierly qualities of the Australian Forces.

Secondly, a condemnation, as sweeping and as unrelieved as his praise in the first instance is unstinted, of the whole of the rest of the force.

I myself as C.-in-C., my Generals, my Staff, Lines of Communication, Sir John Maxwell and General Spens at the Base, even the British soldiers collectively and individually, are all embraced in this condemnation which is completed by the inclusion of the entire direction of the Forces at home, both Naval and Military.

"Where all are thus tarred with the same brush, I am content to leave it to the impartial reader to decide what reliance can be placed on Mr.

Murdoch's judgment. My own feeling certainly is that in his admiration for the Australian Forces, and in his grief at their heavy losses (in both of which feelings I fully share) he has allowed himself to belittle and to criticize us all so that their virtues might be thrown into even bolder relief.

"With Mr. Murdoch's detailed points I do not propose to deal, nor do I think you expect me to do so. On every page inaccuracies of fact abound.

The breaking of Spens on the Continent, a theatre of war he has never visited; the over-statement of our casualties by more than 40 per cent.; the acceptance as genuine of a wholly mythical order about the shooting of laggards--really the task would be too long. As to the value of Mr.

Murdoch's appreciation of the strategical and tactical elements of the situation you can yourself a.s.sess them at their true value.

"Finally, I do not for one moment believe the general statement put forward to the effect that the troops are disheartened. Neither that statement nor the a.s.sertion that they are discontented with the British Officers commanding them has the slightest foundation in fact.

"Believe me, "My dear Callwell, "Yours very sincerely, (_Sd._) "IAN HAMILTON.

"P.S.--I attach correspondence showing how Mr. Murdoch's visit arose. I believe I exceeded my power in giving him permission to come but I was most anxious to oblige the Australian Prime Minister and Senator Pearce.

You will see that he promises faithfully to observe any conditions I may impose. The only condition I imposed was that he should sign a declaration identical with that which I attach. He signed and the paper is in my possession."

CORRESPONDENCE.

"Dear Sir,

"On the advice of Brigadier-General Legge I beg to request permission to visit Anzac.

"I am proceeding from Melbourne to London to take up the position of managing editor of the Australian news cable service in connection with the _London Times_ and at the Commonwealth Government's request am enquiring into mail arrangements, dispositions of wounded, and various matters in Egypt in connection with our Australian Forces. I find it impossible to make a complete report upon changes that have been suggested here until I have a better knowledge of the system pursued at base Y, and on the Mainland, and I beg of you, therefore, to permit me to visit these places.

"I should like to go across in only a semi-official capacity, so that I might record censored impressions in the London and Australian newspapers I represent, but any conditions you impose I should, of course, faithfully observe.

"I beg to enclose (_a_) copy of general letter from the Prime Minister and (_b_) copy of my instructions from the Government. I have a personal letter of introduction to you from Senator Pearce, Minister of Defence.

"May I add that I had the honour of meeting you at the Melbourne Town Hall, and wrote fully of your visit in the Sydney _Sun_ and Melbourne _Punch_; also may I say that my anxiety as an Australian to visit the sacred sh.o.r.es of Gallipoli while our army is there is intense.

"Senator Millen asked me to convey his most kindly remembrances to you if I had the luck to see you and in case I have not I take this opportunity of doing so.

"As I have only four weeks in which to complete my work here and get to London a 'collect reply by cable to C/o Colonel Sellheim, Australian Intermediate Base, Cairo, would greatly oblige.

"I have the honour to be, "Sir, "Your obediently, (_Sd._) "KEITH A. MURDOCH.

"C/o Colonel Sellheim, C.B., "A.I.F. Intermediate Base, "Cairo.

"_August 17, 1915._"

"COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, "PRIME MINISTER'S DEPARTMENT, "MELBOURNE.

_"July 14th, 1915._

"This letter will serve to introduce Mr. Keith Arthur Murdoch, a well known journalist, of Melbourne, who is proceeding to Europe to undertake important duties in connection with his profession.

"Mr. Murdoch is also undertaking certain inquiries for the Government of the Commonwealth in the Mediterranean Theatre of War. And for any facilities which may be rendered him to enable him the better to carry out these duties I shall be personally obliged.

(_Sd._) "ANDREW FISHER, "_Prime Minister._"