was the Chief of the General Staff at the French
War Office; but we in Whitehall never could make out exactly what were
the relations between the military authorities in Paris and those at
Chantilly. The very fact that General Joffre's Chief of Staff had been
French military representative at our Conference, and not General
Graziani or his nominee, seemed odd.

Some six months later, early in November, I again went over to France,
this time with Sir A. Murray, to attend a discussion with General
Joffre at Chantilly concerning Salonika. Admiralty representatives,
including Admiral Gamble and Mr. Graeme Thomson, Director of Naval
Transport, were of the party. Sir J. French with Sir W. Robertson, his
Chief of the General Staff, and Sir H. Wilson came up from St. Omer.
It was by no means a satisfactory meeting. We from the War Office in
London desired to circumscribe British participation in this new
side-show to the utmost, and to keep the whole business as far as
possible within limits; but we got uncommonly little support from
G.H.Q. Sir W. Robertson expressed no opinion, nor was he called upon
to do so; he would have found it awkward to dissent from his
commander-in-chief. But the result was that when a much more important
conference over the same subject took place a few days later, this
time between the two Governments, Sir J. French was not present while
Sir W. Robertson was. These things do arrange themselves somehow.

As the discussion took place at Chantilly late in the afternoon,
G.H.Q. and we put up at Amiens for the night. On our discovering that
General Joffre contemplated crossing the Channel next day to have a
chat with our Government, the C.I.G.S. prevailed upon Admiral Gamble
to hurry on in his motor to Boulogne next morning so as to catch the
packet there, to cross to Folkestone, and to get up to London in time
to warn our people of the somewhat expansive Salonika programme which
"Grandpere" had up his sleeve. The Silent Navy, it is hardly necessary
to say, fairly rose to the occasion, for the Admiral was off under
forced draught in the dog-watch. Chancing things, however, when
weathering a promontory off Montreuil, he contrived to pile up his
craft on a shoal in a bad position, and he would have missed
trans-shipment at Boulogne altogether had he not got himself taken off
in a passing craft which was under charge of soldier-officers who were
likewise making for the packet. So he got across all right in