Gallipoli Diary, Volume I | Page 6

the defence of London, he, K., was not,
and as he had already explained, big demands would make his position
difficult with France; difficult everywhere; and might end by putting
him (K.) in the cart. Besika Bay and Alexandretta were, therefore,
taboo--not to be touched! Even after we force the Narrows no troops
are to be landed along the Asian coastline. Nor are we to garrison any
part of the Gallipoli Peninsula excepting only the Bulair Lines which
had best be permanently held, K. thinks, by the Naval Division.
When we get into the Marmora I shall be faced by a series of big
problems. What would I do? From what quarter could I attack
Constantinople? How would I hold it when I had taken it? K. asked me
the questions.
With the mud of prosaic Whitehall drying upon my boots these remarks
of K.'s sounded to me odd. But, knowing Constantinople, and--what
was more to the point at the moment--knowing K.'s hatred of hesitation,
I managed to pull myself together so far as to suggest that if the city
was weakly held and if, as he had said, (I forgot to enter that) the bulk
of the Thracian troops were dispersed throughout the Provinces, or else
moving to re-occupy Adrianople, why then, possibly, by a coup de
main, we might pounce upon the Chatalja Lines from the South before

the Turks could climb back into them from the North. Lord K. made a
grimace; he thought this too chancy. The best would be if we did not
land a man until the Turks had come to terms. Once the Fleet got
through the Dardanelles, Constantinople could not hold out. Modern
Constantinople could not last a week if blockaded by sea and land. That
was a sure thing; a thing whereon he could speak with full confidence.
The Fleet could lie off out of sight and range of the Turks and with
their guns would dominate the railways and, if necessary, burn the
place to ashes. The bulk of the people were not Osmanli or even
Mahomedan and there would be a revolution at the mere sight of the
smoke from the funnels of our warships. But if, for some cause at
present non-apparent, we were forced to put troops ashore against
organized Turkish opposition, then he advocated a landing on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus to hold out a hand to the Russians, who
would simultaneously land there from the Black Sea. He only made the
suggestion, for the man on the spot must be the best judge. Several of
the audience left us here, at Lord K.'s suggestion, to get on with their
work. K. went on:--
The moment the holding of Constantinople comes along the French and
the Russians will be very jealous and prickly. Luckily we British have
an easy part to play as the more we efface ourselves at that stage, the
better he, K., will be pleased. The Army in France have means of
making their views work in high places and pressure is sure to be put
on by them and by their friends for the return of the 29th and Naval
Divisions the moment we bring Turkey to book. Therefore, it will be
best in any case to "let the French and Russians garrison
Constantinople and sing their hymns in S. Sophia," whilst my own
troops hold the railway line and perhaps Adrianople. Thus they will be
at a loose end and we shall be free to bring them back to the West; to
land them at Odessa or to push them up the Danube, without
weakening the Allied grip on the waterway linking the Mediterranean
with the Black Sea.
This was the essence of our talk: as it lasted about an hour and a half, I
can only have put down about one tenth of it.

At odd times I have been recipient of K.'s reveries but always, always,
he has rejected with a sort of horror the idea of being War Minister or
Commander-in-Chief. Now by an extreme exercise of its ironic spirit,
Providence has made him both.
In pre-war days, when we met in Egypt and at Malta, K. made no bones
about what he wanted. He wanted to be Viceroy of India or
Ambasssador at Constantinople.
I remember very well one conversation we had when I asked him why
he wanted to hang on to great place, and whether he had not done
enough already. He said he could not bear to see India being
mismanaged by nincompoops or our influence in Turkey being
chucked out of the window with both hands: I answered him, I
remember, by saying there were only two things worth doing as
Viceroy and they would not take very long. One was to put