en the Entente and the Sublime
Porte, the Bosphorus was certain to be closed as a line of
communication between the Western Powers and Russia. Such an
eventuality was bound to exercise a far-reaching influence over the
course of the war as a whole. One therefore naturally gave some
attention to the possibilities involved in an undertaking against
Constantinople and the Straits--a subject with which by chance I
happened to be probably as familiar as anybody in the army.

Some eight years before, in the early part of 1906, H.M. Government
had found itself at variance with the Sublime Porte in connection with
a spot called Tabah at the head of the Gulf of Akaba, which we
regarded as within the dominions of the Khedive but which Osmanli
troops had truculently taken possession of. The Sultan's advisers had
been rather troublesome about the business, and Downing Street and the
Foreign Office had been obliged to take up a firm attitude before the
Ottoman Government unwillingly climbed down. I had been in charge of
the strategical section of the Military Operations Directorate at that
time, and, in considering what we might be able to do in the military
line supposing that things came to a head, had investigated the
problems involved in gaining possession of the Dardanelles. Some years
earlier, moreover, I had passed through the Straits and had spent a
night at Chanak in the Narrows, taking careful note of the lie of the
land, of the batteries as then existing, and so forth.

After an accommodation had been arrived at with Johnny Turk in 1906,
the Committee of Imperial Defence had followed up this question of
operations against the Hellespont, more or less as an academic
question; and I had drafted a paper on the subject, which was gone
through line by line by General Spencer Ewart who was then D.M.O., in
consultation with myself, was modified in some minor respects by him,
was initialed by General Lyttelton, the Chief of the General Staff,
and was accepted in principle by the C.I.D., Sir J. Fisher (as he then
was) having as First Sea Lord expressed his full concurrence with the
views therein expressed. These in effect "turned" the project "down."
When about the end of August I searched for the 1906 memorandum in the
files of the Committee of Imperial Defence papers which were in my
safe, I found a note in the file concerned to say that by order of the
Prime Minister the memorandum had been withdrawn. The reason for this
I di