eir casualties in
these past few days are put at very high figures by both Birdie and H.W.
and it is probable that 5,000 are actually lying dead on the ground. I
have on my table a statement made by de Lisle; endorsed by Hunter-Weston
and dated 4th instant, saying that 1,200 Turkish dead can be counted
corpse by corpse from the left front. The actual numbers de Lisle
estimates as between 2,000 and 3,000. Now we have to-day's losses to
throw in. The Turks are burning their candle fast at the Anzac as well
as the Helles end. Ten days of this and they are finished.[25]

Naturally, my mind dwells happily just now upon our incoming New Army
formations. Yet every now and then I feel compelled to look back to
regret the lack of systematic flow of drafts and munitions which have
turned our fine victory of the 28th into a pyrrhic instead of a fruitful
affair. When Pyrrhus gained his battle over the Romans and exclaimed,
"One more such victory and I am done in," or words to that effect, he
had no organized system of depots behind him from which the bloody gaps
in his ranks could be filled. A couple of thousand years have now passed
and we are still as unscientific as Pyrrhus. A splendid expeditionary
force sails away; invades an Empire, storms the outworks and in doing so
knocks itself to bits. Then a second expeditionary force is sent, but
that would have been unnecessary had any sort of arrangement been
thought out for promptly replacing first wastages in men and in shell.

_6th July, 1915._ From early morning till 5 p.m. stuck as persistently
to my desk as the flies stuck persistently to me. After tea went riding
with Maitland. Then with Pollen to dine on board H.M.S. _Triad_. The two
Territorial Divisions are coming. What with them and the Rooskies we
ought to get a move on this time. Discoursed small craft with the
Admiral. The French hate the overseas fire--small blame to them--and
Bailloud agrees with his predecessor Gouraud in thinking that one man
hit in the back from Asia affects the _moral_ of his comrades as badly
as half a dozen bowled over by the enemy facing them. The Admiral's idea
of landing from Tenedos would help us here, but it is admitted on all
hands now that the Turks have pushed on with their Asiatic defences, and
it is too much to ask of either the New Army or of the Territorials that
they should start off with a terrible landing.

_7th July, 1915._ No escape from the steadily rising flood of letters
an