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f the Peninsula._ A biggish sea running, subsiding as the day went on--and my mind grew calmer with the waves. For we are living hand-to-mouth now in every sense. Two days' storm would go very near starving us. Until we work up some weeks' reserve of water, food and cartridges, I shan't sleep sound. Have lent Birdwood four Battalions of the Royal Naval Division and two more Battalions are landing at Helles to form my own reserve. Two weak Battalions; that is the exact measure of my executive power to shape the course of events; all the power I have to help either d'Amade or Hunter-Weston. Water is a worry; weather is a worry; the shelling from Asia is a thorn in my side. The sailors had hoped they would be able to shield the Southern point of the Peninsula by interposing their ships but they can't. Their gunnery won't run to it--was never meant to run to it--and with five going aeroplanes we can't do the spotting. Our Regiments, too, will not be their superb selves again--won't be anything like themselves--not until they get their terrible losses made good. There is no other way but fresh blood for it is sheer human nature to feel flat after an effort. Any violent struggle for life always lowers the will to fight even of the most cut-and-come-again:--don't I remember well when Sir George asked me if the Elandslaagte Brigade had it in them to storm Pepworth? I had to tell him they were still the same Brigade but not the same men. No use smashing in the impregnable sea front if we don't get a fresh dose of energy to help us to push into the, as yet, very pregnable hinterland. Since yesterday morning, when I saw our men scatter right and left before an enemy they would have gone for with a cheer on the 25th or 26th,--ever since then I have cursed with special bitterness the lack of vision which leaves us without that 10 per cent. margin above strength which we could, and should, have had with us. The most fatal heresy in war, and, with us, the most rank, is the heresy that battles can be won without heavy loss--I don't care whether it is in men or in ships. The next most fatal heresy is to think that, having won the battle, decimated troops can go on defeating fresh enemies without getting their 10 per cent. renewed. [Illustration: "W" BEACH] At 9 o'clock I boarded H.M.S. _Kennett_, a destroyer, and went ashore. Commodore Roger Keyes came along with me, and we set foot on Turkish soil for the first time at 9.45 a.m.
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