amage we did, I don't know, there were big explosions in the
Forts!"

Little Birdie, now grown up into a grand General, turned up at 3 p.m. I
was enchanted to see him. We had hundreds and thousands of things to
talk over. Although the confidence of the sailors seems quite unshaken
by the events of the 18th, Birdie seems to have made up his mind that
the Navy have shot their bolt for the time being and that we have no
time to lose in getting ready for a landing. But then he did not see the
battle and cannot, therefore, gauge the extent to which the Turkish
Forts were beaten.

_22nd March, 1915._ _H.M.S. "Franconia."_ At 10 a.m. we had another
Conference on board the _Queen Elizabeth_.

Present:--

Admiral de Robeck,
Admiral Wemyss,
General Birdwood,
General Braithwaite,
Captain Pollen,
Myself.

The moment we sat down de Robeck told us _he was now quite clear he
could not get through without the help of all my troops_.

Before ever we went aboard Braithwaite, Birdwood and I had agreed that,
whatever we landsmen might think, we must leave the seamen to settle
their own job, saying nothing for or against land operations or
amphibious operations until the sailors themselves turned to us and said
they had abandoned the idea of forcing the passage by naval operations
alone.

They have done so. The fat (that is us) is fairly in the fire.

No doubt we had our views. Birdie and my own Staff disliked the idea of
chancing mines with million pound ships. The hesitants who always make
hay in foul weather had been extra active since the sinking of the three
men-of-war. Suppose the Fleet _could_ get through with the loss of
another battleship or two--how the devil would our troopships be able to
follow? And the store ships? And the colliers?

This had made me turn contrary. During the battle I had cabled that the
chances of the Navy pushing through on their own were hardly fair
fighting chances, but, since then, de Robeck, the man who should know,
had said twice that he _did_ think there was a fair fighting chance. Had
he stuck to that opinion at the conference, then I was ready, as a
soldier, to make light of military croaks about troopships.
Constantinople must surrender, revolt or scuttle within a very few hours
of our battleships entering the Marmora. Memories of one or two obsolete
six inchers at Ladysmith helped me to feel as Constantinople would feel
when her rail and sea communications were cut and a