momentous sittings. It came about
after this wise. On the rising of a Dardanelles Committee meeting, one
of the Ministers who had attended drew me into a corner to enquire
concerning a point that had arisen. There was movement going on in the
room, people coming and going, but we were intent on our confabulation
and took no notice. Suddenly there was an awe-inspiring silence and
then Mr. Asquith was heard to lift up his voice. "Good Lord!"
ejaculated my Minister (just like that--they are quite human when
taken off their guard), "the Cabinet's sitting!" and until back, safe
within the War Office portals, I almost seemed to feel a heavy hand on
my shoulder haling me off to some oubliette, never more to be heard of
in the outer world.

A less teeming War Council than the Dardanelles Committee was
substituted for that assemblage about October 1915, and I only
attended one or two of its meetings. Sir A. Murray was by that time
installed as C.I.G.S., and things were on a more promising footing
within the War Office. It was this new form of War Council which was
thrown over by the Cabinet with reference to the evacuation of the
Gallipoli Peninsula, as related on pp. 103, 104. As far as one could
judge, when more or less of an outsider in connection with the general
conduct of operations but none the less a good deal behind the scenes,
this type of War Council, constituted out of the Ministers who were
directly connected with the operations, besides the Prime Minister,
Foreign Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the First Sea
Lord and C.I.G.S. always in attendance, worked very well during the
greater part of 1916. But Mr. Lloyd George's plan of a War Cabinet, in
spite of certain inevitable drawbacks to such an arrangement, was
undoubtedly the right one for times of grave national emergency. Its
accessibility and its readiness to deal with problems in a practical
spirit are illustrated by the following incident within my own
experience.

We had got ourselves into a condition of chaos in [p.216] connection with
the problem of Greek supplies at the beginning of 1918. There was an
extremely vague agreement with the French, an unsigned agreement
entered into in haste by representatives on our side of little
authority, under which we were supposed to provide all sorts of things
for the Hellenes. But the whole business was extremely irregular and
it was in a state of hopeless confusion--it will be referred to again
in a