vering the
landing places, with concealed machine gun emplacements and land mines
on the beach; and has put in concealed positions guns and howitzers
capable of covering the landing places and approaches with their fire."

"The Turkish Army in the Peninsula is being supplied and reinforced from
the Asiatic side and from the Sea of Marmora and is not dependent on the
Isthmus of Bulair. The passage of the Isthmus of Bulair by troops and
supplies at night cannot be denied by the guns of our Fleet."

After estimates of our forces and of the difficulties they may expect to
encounter, Hunter-Weston comes to the conclusion that, "the only landing
places worth serious consideration are:

"(1). Those near Cape Suvla,
(2). Those near Cape Helles."

Of these two he advises Helles, because:--"the Fleet can also surround
this end of the Peninsula and bring a concentrated fire on any Turks
holding it. We, therefore, should be able to make sure of securing the
Achi Baba position." Also, because our force is too weak to hold the big
country round Suvla Bay and at the same time operate against Kilid Bahr.

If this landing at Helles is successful, he considers the probable
further course of the operations. Broadly, he thinks that we are so
short of ammunition and particularly of high explosive shell that there
is every prospect of our getting tied up on an extended line across the
Peninsula in front of the Kilid Bahr trenches. Should the enemy
submarines arrive we should be "up a tree."

The cards in the game of life are the characters of men. Staking on
those cards I take my own opinions--always. But when we play the game of
death, things are our counters--guns, rivers, shells, bread, roads,
forests, ships--and in totting up the values of these my friend
Hunter-Weston has very few equals in the Army.

Therefore, his conclusion depresses me very much, but not so much as it
would have done had I not seen him. For certainly during his conference
on the 30th March with d'Amade and myself he never said or implied in
any way that under conditions as he found them and as they were then set
before him, there was no reasonable prospect of success:--quite the
contrary. Here are the conclusions as written at Malta:--

"Conclusion. The information available goes to show that if this
Expedition had been carefully and secretly prepared in England, France
and Egypt, and the Naval and Military details of organisation, equipment
and disemb