felt assured that the Dardanelles could
withstand British naval power. Plans were made for a general exit
to Asia Minor, and there was a conviction that in a few days Allied
ships would be in the Golden Horn. At the forts, if we may believe
evidence not as yet definitely disproved, affairs were still more
desperate. The guns, though manned largely by Germans, were not of
the latest type, and for a month had been engaged in almost daily
bombardment. Ammunition was running short. "Fort Hamadie, the most
powerful defense on the Asiatic side, had just 17 armor-piercing
projectiles left, while at Killid-ul-Bahr, the main defense on
the European side, there were precisely 10."[2] To this evidence
may be added the statement of Enver Pasha: "If the English had
only had the courage to rush more ships through the Dardanelles
they could have got to Constantinople, but their delay enabled us
to fortify the peninsula, and in 6 weeks' time we had taken down
there over 200 Austrian Skoda guns."

[Footnote 2: AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S STORY, _World's Work_, September,
1918, p. 433, corroborating the statement of the correspondent G.
A. Schreiner, in FROM BERLIN TO BAGDAD.]

If Mr. Churchill was chiefly responsible for undertaking the campaign,
he was not responsible for the delay after March 18. "It never
occurred to me," he states, "that we should not go on." Admiral
de Robeck in his first despatches appeared to share this view. On
March 26, however, he telegraphed: "The check on March 18 is not,
in my opinion, decisive, but on March 22 I met General Hamilton and
heard his views, and I now think that, to obtain important results
and to achieve the object of the campaign, a combined operation
will be essential." This despatch, Mr. Churchill says, "involved a
complete change of plan and was a vital decision. I regretted it
very much. I believed then, as I believe now, that we were separated
by very little from complete success." He proposed that the Admiral
should be directed to renew the attack; but the First Sea Lord did
not agree, nor did Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, nor Admiral Sir Henry
Jackson. So it was decided to wait for the army, and some satire
has been directed at Mr. Churchill and those other "acknowledged
experts in the technicalities of amphibious warfare," Mr. Balfour
and Mr. Asquith, who were inclined to share his views. The verdict
of the Dardanelles Commission was that, "Had the attack been renewed
within a day or two