anywhere along the line seeing I have been unable
to replace your sick and wounded men." But, if he knows I _can't_ take
the offensive, why trouble to cable me that the Dardanelles Committee
expect me to adopt "only a purely defensive attitude"? I realize where
we stand; K., Braithwaite and I,--on the verge. We are getting on for
two months now since the August fighting--all that time we have been
allowed to do nothing--literally, allowed to do nothing, seeing we have
been given no shell. What a fiasco! The Dardanelles is not a sanatorium;
Suvla is not Southend. With the men we have lost from sickness in the
past six weeks we could have beaten the Turks twice over. Now Government
seem to be about to damn everything--themselves included.

But after all, who am I to judge the Government of the British Empire?
What do I know of their difficulties, pledges, and enemies--whether
outside or inside the fold?

I have no grouse against Government or War Office--still less against
K.--though many hundred times have I groused.[14]

Freely and gratefully do I admit that the individuals have done their
best. Most of all am I indebted--very deeply indebted--to K. for having
refrained absolutely from interference with my plan of campaign or with
the tactical execution thereof.

But things are happening now which seem beyond belief. That the
Dardanelles Committee should complacently send me a message to say we
"quite understand that you are adopting only a purely defensive
attitude at present" is staggering when put side by side with the carbon
of this, the very last cable I have sent them. "I think you should know
immediately that the numbers of sick evacuated in the IXth Corps during
the first three days of October were 500 men on the 1st instant; 735 men
on the 2nd instant and 607 men on the 3rd instant. Were this rate kept
up it would come to 45 per cent. of our strength evacuated in one
month."

Three quarters of this sickness is due to inaction--and now the
Dardanelles Committee "quite understand" I am "adopting only a purely
defensive action at present." I have never adopted a defensive attitude.
They have forced us to sit idle and go sick because--at the very last
moment--they have permitted the French offensive to take precedence of
ours, although, on the face of it, there was no violent urgency in
France as there is here. Our men in France were remarkably healthy; they
were not going sick by thousands. But I feel too si