increased forces acting in trench positions, I own I have some doubts of
an early decisive result being obtained by at once increasing the forces
at your disposal, but I should like your views as soon as you
can--to-day if possible. Are you convinced that with immediate
reinforcements to the extent you mention you could force the Kilid Bahr
position and thus finish the Dardanelles operations?

"You mentioned in a previous telegram that you intended to keep
reinforcements on islands, is this your intention with regard to the
Lowland Division, now on its way to you, and the other troops when
sent?"

K.'s brief cable is _intensely_ characteristic. I have taken down
hundreds of his wires. We are face to face here with his very self at
_first hand_. How curiously it reveals the man's instinct, or
genius--call it what you will.

K. sees in a flash what the rest of the world does not seem to see so
clearly; viz., that the piling up of increased forces opposite
entrenched positions is a spendthrift, unscientific proceeding. He
wishes to know if I mean to do this. To draw me out he assumes if I get
the troops, I _would_ at once commit them to trench warfare by crowding
them in behind the lines of Helles or Anzac. Actually I intend to keep
the bulk of them on the islands, so as to throw them unexpectedly
against some key position which is _not_ prepared for defence. But I
have to be very careful what I say, seeing that the Turks got wind of
the date of our first landing from London _via_ Vienna. Least said to a
Cabinet, least leakage.

That is not all. Curt as is the cable it has yet scope to show up a
little more of our great K.'s outfit. His infernal hurry. "To-day":--I
am to reply, to-day! He has taken some two and a half weeks to answer my
request for two Army Corps and I am to answer a far more obscure
question in two and a half minutes. Why, since my appeal of 17th May the
situation has not stood still. A Commander in the field is like a cannon
ball. If he stops going ahead, he falls dead. You can't stop moving for
a fortnight and then expect to carry on where you left off; I think the
Duke of Wellington said this; if he didn't he should have. To err is to
be human and the troops, if sent at once, may or may not, fulfil our
hopes. All we here can say is this:--

(1) If the Army Corps had been sent at once (i.e., two weeks ago) the
results should have been decisive.

(2) If the Army Corps are not sent at once, there