a period of unprecedented difficulty, no one
can deny his success in India and Egypt. With those commands had
necessarily gone an exhaustive study of military operations that might
conceivably have to be undertaken for the protection of British
prestige and power in the Mohammedan world.

Thus he was thoroughly at home in the Near East and he brought back to
London an encouraging report. Even high military opinion in England
had been of the opinion that the withdrawal of the allied troops from
Gallipoli could not be effected without terrible losses. Some even
held that it would be better and less costly in human lives to leave
the troops there on the defensive until the end of the war than to
attempt to get them out of the death hole into which they had been
dumped.

This, however, was not Lord Kitchener's idea. He reported that they
could be withdrawn, not, it was true, without heavy losses, but at a
cost much smaller than the general estimate. This conclusion he came
to after an examination on the spot, and subsequent events, as we
shall see, more than justified his judgment in the matter.

Once having made up its mind to risk the loss of prestige involved and
withdraw the army from the Gallipoli Peninsula, the British Government
acted with speed and intelligence. It turned the difficult task over
to General Sir Charles Monro, whose subsequent accomplishment of the
operations earned him the admiration of every military man throughout
the world.

General Sir Charles Monro's job was difficult and dangerous enough for
any man. In the face of an enemy numbering something like 80,000 men,
along a line of 20,000 yards, he had to withdraw an almost equal
number of men with their stores, trucks, ammunition, guns, etc. Only
by the greatest of good fortune could he have the inestimable
advantage of surprise.

Moreover, the enemy had been tremendously encouraged and emboldened by
the successful defense which they had offered to all the allied
assaults of the previous year. Their Mohammedan fanaticism had been
stirred by the Turkish, Austrian, and German press, and their pride
quickened by the thick crop of rumors that the Allies were finally
about to acknowledge defeat.

In many places the French and British trenches were separated by less
than fifty yards from the Turkish defenders. In few cases were they
more than 500 yards distant. Furthermore, the Turkish positions
overlooked the allied troops, being in almost every