12 
LAND & WATER 
March 15, 191; 
as to the strategical value of a certain operation and differ 
as to the practical method of iindertakint,' it. It is for 
experts to say what is practical and what is not ; their 
judgment on "the tactical employnit-nt of force is final. 
And no statesman in his senses" could possibly sanction 
any military undertaking if his expert advisers were 
unanimous in telling him that t)ie only tactical method 
that could be employed was doomed to failure. But if 
strictly military arguments are equal, it is for statesmen 
to decidi.' on the strategical objection. 
The application of these principles to the situation in 
January, iqi.5. is very obvious. Jiveryont^ on the war 
(ouncii was a;r-ed as to the importance of striking at 
Turkey. They were equally imanimous that an 
amphibious operation against the defences of Constan- 
tinople, supposing an adequate force was available, ought 
to succeed and change the whole coiuse of the war. 
But just as they were unanimous on the.se two jioints so 
did thev accept without (piestion a third— namely, 
that for "some months after the ist January, no adequate 
military force would be available. Next, Lord Fisher, 
in January, 1915, was considering a plan for emplojnng our 
large margin of prc-Drcadnought ships, the nature of 
which is not disclosed in the report. We cannot, there- 
fore, judge whether his objective should have been pre- 
ferred. Mr. Churchill and Mr. Asquith may have been 
wrong in thinking that the appearance of the fleet off 
Constantinople was of more value than the stroke Lord 
Fisher had in view. And it is immaterial to the point we 
are dealing with whether it was so or not, for the reason 
that it is not the strategy involved in the Dardanelles 
adventure that is in issue. The point is ; what authority 
had Mr. Churchill and the War Council for the tactical 
soundness of the plan adopted ? 
Plain Facts 
On this the report is, I submit, absolutely clear and 
completely convincing : 
(i) On receipt of the Russian telegram of January 
2nd, Lord Kitchener stated delinitely that he had not, 
and for some time would not have, any troops available 
for an attack on Turkey. To force the Dardanelles he 
estimated 130,000 men with the requisite arms and stores 
would be needed and these, the necessities of the 
French front being what they were, simply did not exist. 
He could only suggest that a naval demonstration should 
be made, though doivbtful as to any precise advantage 
accruing from it to our Allies. The thing that has to be 
explained is, how so modest a proposal grew into some- 
thing so entirely different. 
(2) The explanation is to be found in the events of the 
next fortnight. Within 24 hours of the receipt of 
Kitchener's suggestion, Mr. ChuVchill and Lord Fisher 
were in communication with the Commander-in-Chief of 
the Mediterranean, and asking his opinion, not on a 
demonstration, but on the practicability of forcing the 
Dardanelles, entering the Sea of Marmora, defeating the 
Turkish fleet and bombarding Constantinople with naval 
force aloqe. By January nth Vice-.\dmiral Carden 
had drafted a scheme and specified the forces required 
for its execution. Lord Kitchener shared the general 
military opinion that a contest between forts and ships 
did not promise well for the ships. It was Lord Fisher 
who dispelled this prejudice. He offered to add the 
Queen Elizabeth to the expedition, and the magic of her 
15-inch guns dissipated every doubt. She was therefore 
included in the list of ships which the First Lord and 
I-'irst Sea Lord and Chief of the Staff agreed, on January 
1 2th, were necessary for carrying out the plan of forcing 
the Dardanelles. Next day this plan was laid before 
the Council, and on the strength of the promises of what 
the Queen Elizabeth could do, was adopted. On the 
I4tli Lord h'isher agreed in a memorandum recording 
the fact that the exjx'dition would absorb the whole of 
the available naval reserves. The plan then originated 
with Mr. Churchill and his only responsible naval adviser, 
and was carried at the War Council by arguments which 
Lord Fisher's personal contribution to the scheme made 
possible. '' 
(3) The next twelve days were spent at the .Admiralty 
in preparing plans of operations and drafting orders for 
the forces to be employed in its execution. The plans 
and the methods for "executing them must have been 
known to the First Sea Lord, who expressed no dis- 
approval. The thing went on to the next meeting o: 
Janiiary 28th without a single suggestion from hin 
that the plan was impracticable. On January 28th tlu 
tuial decision was reached, and on February lytli the 
attack began. 
(4) Mr. Churchill told us in November it)i5, that the 
success of the fleet against the outer forts took e\-eryonc 
at home by surprise. But by the second week in Marcl' 
the. thing was seen to han.g lire, and the .Admiral in 
conuuand was urged to more strenuous efforts. On 
March the i8th the great attack on the Narrows, so long 
pre])ared. so urgently insisted on from home, was made 
;uk1 failed. Three out of 16 ships were simk, four more 
had to be beached or docked. Two more had big gnus 
dismounted (jr out of action. 43 per cent, of the force 
had gone. Only seven ships out of 16 were unhurt. 
(5) I he vital thing to bear in mind is that, even now, 
naval opinion was unanimous in thinking that the purely 
naval effort- should continue and would succeed. Only 
on March 26th when the Commander-in-Chief's detailed 
reasons were given for waiting till military help was. 
available, was naval failure acknowledged. 
Responsible Adviser 
From January 3rd, then, till March 26th, Lord Fisher 
knew that no action for forcing the Dardanelles could or 
would be taken other than purely naval action. It was 
his suggestion, that the Queen Elizabeth should join the 
bombarding fleet, that overcame the military prejudice 
against trusting to naval action alone. He had gone into 
the thing from the first on the basis that it was not a 
demonstration but a considered and practicable plan oi 
putting Constantinople at the mercy of the fleet. He 
was cognisant of every step proposed for attaining this 
result, and at no stage, until nearly half the force was out 
of action and the Admiral on the spot advised delay 
until the soldiers were ready, did he throw any doubt on 
the adequacy of 'the tactical methods to be employed. 
Lord iMshcr's friends in the press make much of the 
fact that he preferred an amphibious to a naval effort and, 
on January 25th, j^ressed his preference for an alternati\-e 
undertaking to the point of a direct appeal to the Prime 
Minister. What they fail to see is that this action throws 
his responsibility for endorsing the tactical soundness of 
the proposal adopted into far higher relief. For what was 
the position ? 
First, the Board of Admiralty had ceased to exist. 
Lord Fisher was not the First Lord's chief, he was his 
only responsible na\'al adviser. On no entirely technical 
question .could he have been over-ruled. He had an 
alternati\-e plan. He thought so highly of it that he 
wished to dissociate himself from any further respon- 
sibility for the attack on the Dardanelles. He had then 
every motive for using his indisputable authority for 
stopping the Constantinople adventure — if only he could 
produce an excuse for using that authority. He did 
produce an argument. It was an alternative strategy' — 
one which the Prime Minister could rightly over-rule. 
But had his objection been tactical, had he been able to 
say, " This' thing must stop because it cannot succeed," 
the thing must have stopped, and instantly. There 
was no possible alternati\-e. Can people really fail to see 
that the Insher Memorandum of January 25th and the 
incidents of the two Councils of January 28th, are final 
and conclusive proof that the only naval expert respon- 
sible to Mr. Churchill, the Prime Minister, and the War 
Council, for expert technical advice on a na\al operation 
of tiie first magnitude, never suspected that the plan 
he had originated was wholly impracticable from beginning 
to end ? 
Form and Substance 
Once it is to be admitted that naval expert advicfc 
hostile to the plan for forcing the Dardanelles, was not 
forthcoming or 'sup])ressed, because there was no advice 
that was, in fact, hostile, all the Commissioners' con- 
clusions I have quoted necessarily fall to the ground. 
But |there is another of their censures which, on the fact? 
set out above,' falls also. Lord Kitchener is blamed 
because, on February 20th, he countermanded the des- 
patch of the Twenty-ninth Division, ordered by the War 
