In other words, it is only after he has heard Hamilton’s proposals that he decides to abandon the naval attack.

Whatever may be the truth of this matter — whether Hamilton enticed de Robeck away from the naval attack or whether de Robeck himself suggested that the Army should come in and help — the important thing is that on March 22 the Admiral changed his mind; nothing more was now to be done by the Fleet until the Army, now scattered along the Mediterranean, was assembled and ready to land.

One can perhaps glimpse something of what was going on in de Robeck’s mind. The wounds of March 18 were beginning to stiffen and hurt. To sailors of de Robeck’s generation it was an appalling thing to lose battleships, no matter how old and out of date they were. Most of their lives had been spent on these decks; these ships had been their home, and through the years they had developed for them not only affection but pride as well. The whole tradition of the Navy was that the ship was more important than the man: no matter what the cost in lives the captain must always try to save his ship. And now in a few hours three of the largest vessels of the Fleet with their famous names had gone to the bottom.

Then again de Robeck was perfectly aware of Fisher’s opposition to the Dardanelles adventure. For the moment Churchill might be holding the old Admiral in line, but young and enthusiastic First Lords did not last for ever. Fisher stood for the Navy, its permanence and its traditions, and he was a formidable man. He had said all along that the Fleet was not likely to get through without the aid of the Army, and now here were three sunken battleships to prove his point. Suppose another three ships were lost when the attack was renewed? It could very easily happen. What was Fisher going to say to that?

There was one other point. De Robeck had very much Hoped that once he was in the Marmara Hamilton would land at Bulair on the neck of the peninsula, and that the Turkish Army, finding itself cut off, would surrender. Thus there would no longer be any threat to the lifeline of the Fleet through the Dardanelles. But at the meeting Hamilton had announced that it could not be done. He had been up to Bulair himself aboard the Phaeton, and had seen the network of entrenchments there. Hamilton now proposed that he should land instead at the tip of the peninsula and fight his way up it. This altered the Fleet’s situation entirely. It meant that there would be no sudden collapse of the Turks; they would continue to hold the Narrows and threaten the supply ships coming through. It was true that from the Marmara the Fleet could attack the Turkish forts from the rear. But how long would it take to destroy them? How long could the Fleet remain isolated in the Marmara without coal and ammunition; and with the Goeben still intact? A fortnight? Three weeks?

There were of course grave dangers in delaying the renewal of the naval attack until the Army was ready. With every day that went by the Turks were recovering from the bombardment of the 18th, and one had only to look at the new entrenchments that appeared every morning on the cliffs to know that reinforcements were arriving. Well then, how much delay would there be? Hamilton thought it would be about three weeks before he was ready. Had Kitchener allowed the 29th Division to sail at the beginning of February as he had originally intended, the troops would be here now, and it would have been a very different story. But the 29th was still at sea, far down the other end of the Mediterranean,[6] and Hamilton did not believe he could attack without them — and in fact Kitchener had expressly forbidden him to do so.

Birdwood disagreed with Hamilton over this. He said that it might be worth while taking a chance and landing there and then with whatever forces they could scrape together at Lemnos. But on going into the matter it was found that every sort of equipment from guns to landing craft was missing. Moreover, the transports coming out from England had been stowed in the wildest confusion: horses in one ship, harness in another: guns had been packed without their limbers and isolated from their ammunition. Nobody in England had been able to make up their minds as to whether or not there were roads on the Gallipoli peninsula, and so a number of useless lorries had been put on board. To have landed on hostile beaches in these conditions would have been a hazardous thing. Nor were there any facilities for repacking the ships at Lemnos. So now there was nothing for it but to take everything back to Alexandria in Egypt, and there re-group the whole force and its equipment in some sort of battle order. Provided his administrative staff arrived in good time, Hamilton judged that the Army might be ready to land on Gallipoli somewhere about the middle of April — say, April 14. Then the Army and the Navy could attack together.

Upon this the meeting of March 22 broke up.

Keyes was appalled when he got back to the Queen Elizabeth and heard the news. He pleaded with de Robeck not to change his plans. The new minesweeping force, he said, would clear all their difficulties away, and they were bound to get through. To delay for the Army would be fatal.

De Robeck was still uneasy in his mind and he agreed to see Hamilton again. In the afternoon the two sailors went across to the Franconia where the General was living and Keyes set out his arguments again. He was asked when his minesweepers would be ready, and he replied that it would be in about a fortnight’s time: April 3 or April 4. De Robeck then pointed out that since Hamilton would be ready on April 14 this only meant a delay of ten days. ‘So,’ says Keyes, ‘the matter was finally settled.’ He adds, ‘I must confess I was fearfully disappointed and unhappy.’

To this theme Keyes returned again and again in later days, and it finally emerges in an unrepentant counter blast in the memoirs he published in 1934: ‘I wish to place on record that I had no doubt then, and have no doubt now — and nothing will ever shake my opinion — that from the 4th of April onwards the Fleet could have forced the straits and, with losses trifling compared with those the Army suffered, could have entered the Marmara with sufficient force to destroy the Turco-German Fleet.’

By 1934 Keyes was an Admiral of the Fleet and a great man in the world, with a fighting record that put him almost in the Nelson class. But in 1915 he was no more than an exceptionally promising young commodore, and he was no match for the steady conservatism of the Navy personified by de Robeck. De Robeck was no weakling — he was a kindly, firm, courageous and fair-minded man — but he had had his training and he was the one who bore the responsibility. That sudden flash of inspiration that will sometimes transport a commander past all the accepted rules of warfare into a field of daring that carries everything before it was perhaps lacking in the Admiral’s character, but he can hardly be blamed for that. His ‘no’ was a definite no; it only remained now to learn how London would view this change of plan.

Churchill says he heard the news with consternation. He told the Dardanelles Commission later: ‘I regarded it (the battle of March 18) as only the first of several days’ fighting, though the loss in ships sunk or disabled was unpleasant. It never occurred to me for a moment that we should not go on, within the limits of what we had decided to risk, till we had reached a decision one way or another. I found Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson in the same mood. Both met me that morning (March 19) with expressions of firm determination to fight it out.’

But now, on March 23, Churchill has a telegram from de Robeck saying that he will not move without the Army, and not for another three weeks. At once — and one can imagine with what pugnacity — Churchill sat down and drafted a telegram ordering the Admiral to ‘renew the attack begun on March 18 at the first favourable opportunity’. Then, convening a meeting of Fisher and the War Group at the Admiralty, he placed the telegram before them for their approval.