ven his most inveterate enemies can say that he
has failed to leave his mark for good on every department he has
supervised.

Possessing a combative nature, he engages constantly in
political strife which is marked by the sharpest controversy, and it
is, therefore, perhaps only his intimate friends who know the real
manly, generous kindliness of his disposition and his perfect loyalty.

The perspective of history will show the part he has played throughout
the Great War to have been consistently constructive and of direct
value to the nation.

His visit to my Headquarters at this time was productive of great
good. The Government were getting nervous of the military situation
and of the arrest of our forward advance. With his characteristic
energy and activity, Churchill visited and examined every part of the
battlefield, and what he saw and heard put him in a position to send
reassuring information to his colleagues.

I discussed with him fully my views as to the desirability of
establishing the British Forces in a theatre where they could
co-operate with the Navy and link up with the troops in Belgium. We
examined the possibility of a failure to effect a decisive turning
movement, and agreed in thinking that, in the last resort, we might
still be able, with the flank support of the Fleet, to snatch from the
enemy's possession the Belgian coast-line as far, at any rate, as
Zeebrugge.

When he left me on September 28th it was with a complete understanding
that he would prepare the Navy to fulfil this _role_, and a few
extracts from letters which I subsequently received from him will show
how well he redeemed his promise.

On October 26th he writes:--

"... But, my dear friend, I do trust you will realise how damnable it
will be if the enemy settles down for the winter along lines
which comprise Calais, Dunkirk, or Ostend. There will be continual
alarms and greatly added difficulties. We must have him off the
Belgian coast even if we cannot recover Antwerp.

"I am getting old ships with heavy guns ready, protected by barges
with nets against submarines, so as to dispute the whole seaboard with
him. On the 31st inst. the "Revenge," with four 13-1/2-in. guns, can
come into action if required, and I have a regular fleet of monitors
now organised, which, they all say, have hit the Germans hard this
week, a fleet which is getting stronger every day.

"If you could gain a passage off to the left, I could give you
o