tching his every movement; he wonders whose turn will
come first--and when--and where. This was the sort of effect of the
wireless and in a twinkling every transport round the coast was steering
full steam to Imbros. In less than no time we saw a regatta of
skedaddling ships. So dies the invasion of England bogey which, from
first to last, has wrought us an infinity of harm. Born and bred of
mistrust of our own magnificent Navy, it has led soldiers into heresy
after fallacy and fallacy after heresy until now it is the cause of my
Divisions here being hardly larger than Brigades, whilst the men who
might have filled them are "busy" guarding London! If one rumoured
submarine can put the fear of the Lord into British transports how are
German or any other transports going to face up to a hundred British
submarines? The theory of the War Office has struggled with the theory
of the Admiralty for the past five years: now there is nothing left of
the War Office theory; no more than is left of a soap bubble when you
strike it with a battleaxe. Some other stimulus to our Territorial
recruiting than the fear of invasion will have to be invented in future.

After lunch went to the Headquarters of the 29th Division where all the
British Divisional Generals had assembled together to meet me. The same
story everywhere--lack of men, meaning extra work--which again means
sickness and still greater lack of men. On my return found a letter from
the Turkish Commander-in-Chief giving his "full consent" to the
armistice he himself had asked me for! A save-face document, no doubt:
the wounded are all Turks as our men did not leave their trenches on
the 19th; the dead, also, I am glad to say, almost entirely Turks; but
anyway, one need not be too punctilious where it is a matter of giving
decent burial to so many men.

GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL DE LA 5me ARMEE
OTTOMANE.
_le 22 mai 1915._

"EXCELLENCE!

"J'ai l'honneur d'informer Votre Excellence que les propositions
concernant la conclusion d'un armistice pour enterrer les morts et
secourir les blesses des deux parties adverses, ont trouve mon
plein consentement--et que seule nos sentiments d'humanite nous y
ont determines.

"J'ai investi le lieutenant-colonel Fahreddin du pouvoir de signer
en mon nom.

"