ng before, Lord K." I said; "we have run
this sort of show before and you know without saying I am most deeply
grateful and you know without saying I will do my best and that you can
trust my loyalty--but I must say something--I must ask you some
questions." Then I began.

K. frowned; shrugged his shoulders; I thought he was going to be
impatient, but although he gave curt answers at first he slowly
broadened out, until, at the end, no one else could get a word in
edgeways.[3]

My troops were to be Australians and New Zealanders under Birdwood (a
friend); strength, say, about 30,000. (A year ago I inspected them in
their own Antipodes and no finer material exists); the 29th Division,
strength, say 19,000 under Hunter-Weston--a slashing man of action; an
acute theorist; the Royal Naval Division, 11,000 strong (an excellent
type of Officer and man, under a solid Commander--Paris); a French
contingent, strength at present uncertain, say, about a Division, under
my old war comrade the chivalrous d'Amade, now at Tunis.

Say then grand total about 80,000--probably panning out at some 50,000
rifles in the firing line. Of these the 29th Division are
extras--_division de luxe._

K. went on; he was now fairly under weigh and got up and walked about
the room as he spoke. I knew, he said, his (K.'s) feelings as to the
political and strategic value of the Near East where one clever tactical
thrust delivered on the spot and at the spot might rally the wavering
Balkans. Rifle for rifle, _at that moment_, we could nowhere make as
good use of the 29th Division as by sending it to the Dardanelles, where
each of its 13,000 rifles might attract a hundred more to our side of
the war. Employed in France or Flanders the 29th would at best help to
push back the German line a few miles; at the Dardanelles the stakes
were enormous. He spoke, so it struck me, as if he was defending himself
in argument: he asked if I agreed. I said, "Yes." "Well," he rejoined,
"You may just as well realize at once that G.H.Q. in France do not
agree. They think they have only to drive the Germans back fifty miles
nearer to their base to win the war. Those are the same fellows who used
to write me saying they wanted no New Army; that they would be amply
content if only the old Old Army and the Territorials could be kept up
to strength. Now they've been down to Aldershot and seen the New Army
they are changing their tune, but I am by no means sure, _now_, that
I