The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1929 THE WAR AT WHITEHALL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1929 THE WAR AT WHITEHALL

FOURTEEN years ago, indecision and lack of co-ordination in the Liberal Government of the day precipitated one of the most terrible disasters in the history of British arms. Now, when the failure at Gallipoli is but a bitter memory redeemed only by a glorious record of personal gallantry among the troops who were hurled to the sacrifice, Mr. Lloyd George makes the disarming admission that the war at Whitehall was one of the factors that hindered prosecjntion of the wars in Flanders and on Gallipoli. Perhaps it is hardly correct to say that it was merely “one” of the factors. It was, in fact, the factor, the baneful influence behind all the shocking organisation, the poor timing, the faulty strategy. It, hampered the preparation of ships and services before the attack, and it placed the directors of the campaign on the peninsula in. a practically insupportable position. All this is by no means new. It was suspected at the time of the campaign, in spite of a most rigid censorship, and it was the predominating conclusion reached by the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the failure of the exjfedition. Nevertheless, it is a novelty to have such an admission from the lips of a still active politician who, during the war, was a leading figure in the events behind the scenes —and not always behind them, for Mr. Lloyd George had no active distaste for the limelight. The lesson for ordinary people and those excluded from the solemn councils of the State is that, when politicians and statesmen start to talk, lesser folk may well stand appalled. The tragedy at Gallipoli had more momentous and fearful consequences than any other exploit of such magnitude. Of the 468,000 men thrown into the struggle by the British, 119,000 were killed, wounded, or captured by the enemy, and thousands more fell sick. The knowledge that a lot of this wastage might have been averted but for that other “war” among pettifogging politicians and officials provokes a bitter twinge in the stirring memories of sacrifice. The word “co-ordination” is much abused and overworked, but in 1915 it did not seem to exist. First there was the blundering which, against the advice of the most practical naval tactician of the day, Lord Fisher, and in defiance of elementary principles of strategy, allowed a naval force to batter fruitlessly against almost impregnable forts in an effort to force the Dardanelles by sheer weight of metal. Not only was this attempt costly in ships, but also it served the more vital purpose of warning the Turks and their able adviser, General Liman von Sanders, that Allied dreams of a swift and sudden conquest were turning toward the Dardanelles and Constantinople. The visions might have fructified if the attack of the land and sea forces had been a co-operative effort, but in the interval that elapsed between the naval attack in February and the landing at the end of April, due warning had been given to the Turks, and the defences had been immeasurably strengthened. Though the British had nearly half a million men engaged at one time or another in the brief but costly campaign, there were never more than 100,000 in the firing-line at one time. This, above all things, is the culminating revelation of the lack of co-ordination against which politicians are still railing fourteen years after the event. More supports at crucial moments might have spelt the difference between success and failure. By gaining the heights of Chunuk Bair the New Zealanders gained and held the highest point won by British forces on the peninsula, but the advantage was lost later by the worn-out troops of another unit. Again, in the Suvla Bay attack of August, hesitation, diffusion of forces, and lack of a reserve with which to complete the thrust, meant the breakdown of an attack which was virtually the last desperate throw of the Imperial staff. War has its mistakes, as well as its triumphs, hut it is far easier to understand and forgive those made in the heat of battle than those blunders made by men who, in this case, at any rate, were unable to subordinate sectional interests and departmental advancement for the cause in which the man-power of the nation was making such splendid sacrifice. Throughout 1916 a Royal Commission on which New Zealand was represented by Sir Thomas Mackenzie examined witnesses and endeavoured to ascertain the causes of the Gallipoli failure. Though there were dissentients from several details of the Commission’s report, the first part of its judgment was sufficiently severe to persuade the Government that just at that critical period of the war (1917) the rest were better withheld until some of the obvious defects had been rectified. Some of the men censured in the report were Mr. Churchill, Mr. Asquith and, more than anyone else, Lord Kitchener, whose view that the defences on Gallipoli would collapse on the first appearance of a British landing party had proved a tragic delusion. Meanwhile, the failure had strongly influenced political changes in Great Britain, and had led through weakness to strength by the fall of the two Asquith Cabinets and the ultimate substitution of a more efficient executive. Thus through tribulation came triumph, hut a closer appreciation of that vital word, “co-ordination,” might have shortened the struggle by months, if not years, and thus every fresh disclosure of the “war at Whitehall,” which so protracted the struggle and cost so many lives, will inevitably be greeted with repugnance.