1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [258]
Lt. Col. W. J. K. Rettie, 59 Brig., RFA.
At last we were told we might start disembarking… I was struck by the restfulness of all around. There appeared to be little going on – a good many infantry sitting about or having a bathe. The impression conveyed to my mind was that of a ‘stand-fast’ at some field day. Having located the Commander, Royal Artillery, on the beach near Lala Baba I was told to bring the batteries into action under cover of that hillock. This was rather a shock, as we had at least expected to go forward to Chocolate Hill. On expressing surprise, and asking what we were waiting for, I was met with the grim reply: ‘For the Turks to reinforce!’ And so it proved!
When Colonel Rettie finally did move forward with his guns to Chocolate Hill, he found the Brigadier conferring with his Staff Officers. They sat with maps spread out, quite at ease on the open ground. There was no need to take cover.
Lt. Col. W. J. K. Rettie.
There was no firing, beyond an occasional shot from a sniper somewhere, and the sensation of a pause in a field day still prevailed. I was plied with queries as to how things were progressing on the beach, and when we were likely to get a move on – a question I could not answer.
It was a question which has not been answered to this day, and the line has not yet been drawn beneath the final account. The blame has been laid on many shoulders, but the truth that shines through the continuing post-mortems is that it could not be laid on the shoulders of the troops. They had done their best, they had done their duty and many of them died in the doing of it. Golden opportunities had indeed been missed. By the New Zealanders, whose long wait had enabled Turkish reinforcements to reach Chunuk Bair in time to deny them more than a foothold on its slopes. By Kitchener’s men at Suvla, thwarted less by the enemy than by the pusillanimous leadership of their own command. Where minutes had counted hours had been frittered away and although the fighting battered on, the seeds of failure had been sown. They had germinated in the lack of coherent orders, in fatal delays and stultifying inaction, in pointless sacrifice and lack of resolve. The ‘big show’ conceived and planned as a coordinated effort had devolved into three independent battles. It could have succeeded, but it had failed – and it was the death-knell of the grand Gallipoli strategy. Suvla had finished it. As Sir Ian Hamilton would later point out, just as no one would think of pouring new wine into old bottles, the combination of ‘old Generals and new troops’ was fatal. In the face of much vilification Hamilton kept his dignity and his gentlemanly reserve.
General Stopford was less restrained. In mid-August when he was relieved of his command he embarked on a campaign in which self-justification and vilification of Hamilton played a large part. It hardly mattered now.
Sir Maurice Hankey returned to London saddened and depressed to make his official report.
Col. Sir Maurice Hankey.
It was not without a pang of regret that I bade farewell to de Robeck, Ian Hamilton and my many friends at the Dardanelles. In leaving these brave men marooned on the desolate, sunbaked shores of the peninsula amid squalor, heat and the torment of innumerable flies, with death staring them in the face day and night, encompassed by difficulties, behind them failure, before them the haunting vision of a winter campaign, or the alternative of evacuation, which even the most sanguine anticipated must be a shambles, I felt no small compunction in returning to the comfort of England and home. I also felt a grave responsibility about the report I had to make to the Prime Minister.
But the news had travelled ahead of him and, with the failure of the venture on which so much had depended, a strong body of opinion was already opposed to continuing operations in the Dardanelles. The dilemma that faced the Cabinet was how best to cut their losses without prejudicing British prestige