da or Krupp guns with these short-range veterans is rough on the
gunners. Still, but for the Territorial Force we should have nothing at
all, and but for those guns to-day some of the enemy might have got
home.

A sort of professional gossip turned up to-day from G.H.Q. France. We do
not seem to be so popular as we deserve to be in _la belle France!_ But
what I would plead were I only able to get at Joffre and French is that
we are "such a little one." Were we all to be set down in the West
to-morrow with our shattered, torn formations, they'd put us back into
reserve for a month's rest and training. As for the guns, they'd scrap
the lot. _They_ don't want ancient 15-prs. and 5-inch hows. out there.
They picture us feasting upon their munitions, but half of what we use
they would not touch with a barge pole and, of the good stuff, one
Division in France will fire away in one day what would serve to take
the Peninsula.

Braithwaite has a letter from the D.M.I. telling him that 5,000 Russians
sailed from Vladivostock on the 1st inst. to join us here. One Regiment
of four Battalions plus one Sotnia of Cossacks. A reinforcement of 5,000
stout soldiers tumbling out of the skies! Russians placed here are worth
twice their number elsewhere, not only because we need rifles so badly,
but because of the moral effect their presence should have in the
Balkans.

This little vodka pick-me-up has come in the nick of time to hearten me
against the tenor of the news of to-day which is splendid indeed in one
sense; ominous in another. The Turks are being heavily reinforced. All
the enemy troops who made the big attack last night were fresh arrivals
from Adrianople. I do not grumble at the attack (on the contrary we like
it), but at the reason they had for making it, which is that two fresh
Divisions, newly arrived, asked leave to show their muscle by driving us
into the sea. Full details are only just in. The biggest bombardment
took place at Anzac. A Turkish battleship joined in from the Hellespont,
dropping about twenty 11.2-inch shells into our lines. At Helles, all
night, the Turks blazed away from their trenches. At 4 a.m. they opened
fire on our trenches and beaches with every gun they could bring to
bear from Asia or Achi Baba. Their Asiatic Batteries alone fired 1,900
rounds, of which 700 fell on Lancashire Landing. At least 5,000 shell
were loosed off on to Helles. A lot of the stuff was 6-inch and over.
The bombardment was v