SOME LIGHT ON THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 4 December 1916, Page 2

SOME LIGHT ON THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN.

The Rand “Daily Mail,” of October 23, reports a somewhat extraordinary speech made by Captain Donald Simson, of Ne\v Zealand, at a dinner given in his honour by the Mayor ::i Johannesburg, (Mr. J. W. O’Hara) at the Unionist Party Club. Captain Simson, who, it will be remembered, was wounded at Gallipoli, had returned from a visit to New Zealand to Johannesburg, where he was living before the war. Captain Simson described the efforts of the British fleet to force the Dardanelles, and the circumstances which robbed the landing of the Anzacs of the element of surprise. In one sense, though, it demoralised the Turks, because by accident it occurred a quarter of a mile from the site originally ■,elected. r ihe Anzacs could have nahed inland and attained their objective. but only at the cost of every man being a casualty. Two things stopped them. It was no use obtaining a position they could net hold, and it required a'strong man to give orders that would have involved the sacrifice of the whole of the Anzac Expeditionary Force. If men of the regular army had made the landing, Captain Simson believed, they would have gone on. But the colonies had ju»« and for the first time come into a big

war. and in sacrificing the Anzacs there would, have been a good chance of the colonies curling up under the fearful shock. Some might say that the attempt to command th'e Gallipoli Peninsula was a glorious failure. But he did not think it was altogether that, for it gave Russia freedom from the attacks of the Turkish army in the Caucasus, gave time to the opera lions of the A] lies on the Western front in France compelled the concentration of large enemy armies away from points where 'the Allies were weak, and gave England a chance to mobilise. “But, as to the present position,” said Captain Sirnson. “we have little upon which to congratulate ourselves. For some extraordinary reason the British Empire is congratulating itself upon how well it is doing. It is the satisfaction that one would get from being sat on by a bigger man to whom one would say; ‘You daren’t get up, because if you do I shall also get up.’ ’' Captain Sirnson pointed to the territory held by the enemy, and quoted Mr. Lloyd George’s statement that victory was assured.- Well, he (Captain Sirnson) could only look at these things from a colonial aspect. Of the “big push,” he could say that it had cost us 250,000 casualties, and in four or five months there had been little real alteration in the original 'German lines. He could not sec whar satis faction there was to he got out of what had been done.