the soldiers for their help on a large scale.' But at a further conference on March 22, 'the moment we sat down, de Robeck told us he was now quite sure he could not get through without the help of all my troops.' The dictum of the War Office was thus upset by inexorable facts; and henceforth the military object was to land as many men as possible in the shortest time. Inspection showed that the Turkish defences were already formidable and increasing.* Lemnos was unfit to become the military base; and Sir Ian Hamilton proceeded to Alexandria to organise his promiscuous forces, which gave the Turks under Liman von Sanders time to strengthen their defences.

At dawn on April 25, the landing began; by 5.35 a.m. 4000 men were on shore, and in 24 hours the number was increased to 29,000. It was a splendid feat of arms rendered possible only by devoted gallantry and the infinitely valuable covering fire of the ships. At most of the six beaches, the Turkish defences were formidable, and behind them elaborate preparations had been made. The plan of cutting off a part of the enemy's forces failed completely, and on the 27th Sir Ian Hamilton telegraphed to Lord Kitchener that:

'Sedd-el-Bahr was a dreadful place to carry by open assault, being a labyrinth of rocks, galleries, ruins, and entanglements. With all the devoted help of the Navy, it has taken us a day's hard fighting to make good our footing. Achi Baba, only a cannon-shot distance, will be attacked to-morrow.'

The painful story of supremely gallant efforts and of hopes always deferred is told in full detail by Sir Julian Corbett and illuminated by the intimate knowledge of Sir Ian Hamilton. To the end, it was only a 'footing' on the Peninsula that could be maintained with growing difficulties and great hardships. Always the enemy dominated the positions, hardly won by our forces with their backs to the sea and wholly dependent on supplies landed on open beaches, some of them under constant fire. The commanding ridge of Sari Bair was never occupied, and Achi Baba was still two miles from our front when the final withdrawal took place.

'The real place looks a much tougher nut to crack than it did over the map.'-Letter to Lord Kitchener.

The most startling portions of the 'Gallipoli Diary' are those which reveal the shortage of ammunition fatal to successful attacks, and the abounding illusions which prevailed at the War Office. In reply to an urgent appeal for shells, Sir Ian Hamilton was informed by telegram that:

"The ammunition supply for your force, however, was never calculated on the basis of a prolonged occupation of the Gallipoli Peninsula. We will have to reconsider the position if, after the arrival of the reinforcements, now on their way out to you, the enemy cannot be driven back. It is important to push on.'

This telegram and many others indicate hopeless misconceptions of the nature of the operations. To the last, our forces were always short of artillery ammunition and suffered cruelly in consequence, while the French 75's were well supplied. Even more remarkable is the game of cross-purposes in regard to reinforcements which the 'Diary' reveals. On July 29, Lord Kitchener stated:

'You have a total of about 205,000 men for the forthcoming operations.'

This announcement caused blank amazement among the harassed Staff; and it was necessary to point out that no allowance had been made for non-effectives and casualties, that some of the reinforcements could not be in time for the operations, that others were not known to be at Sir I. Hamilton's disposal, and that:

'For the coming operations the number of rifles available is about half the figure you quote, viz. 120,000.'

On Aug. 25, Lord Kitchener expressed

'sad disappointment. . . that the troops have not been able to do better and that the drafts and reinforcements sent out to you and Egypt, excluding any you have drawn from Egypt, amounting from Aug. 6 to 47,000, have not proved sufficient to enable you to contemplate holding your positions.' This 47,000 men presented an inexplicable problem to the Staff, because, although Lord Kitchener telegraphed on the following day :

'But you should look on the forces in Egypt and your own as a whole, allowing, of course, for the proper defence of Egypt,' the General Officer commanding there had proved always unwilling to meet Sir I. Hamilton's urgent appeals, although he never disposed of less than 70,000 men, a strength far greater than was needed after the miserable fiasco of the Turkish attack on the Suez Canal in the first week of February. Of this feeble effort Sir Julian Corbett rightly says:

"The only wonder is that it was not punished more severely than it was. There was no real pursuit, nor even a serious attempt to harass the retreat.'

From the military point of view, this episode was thoroughly discreditable; but it passed almost unnoticed in the tremendous drama of the Great War.

Sir Julian Corbett's narrative ends with the resignations of Lord Fisher and Mr Churchill, followed by the reconstruction of the Government. Sir Ian Hamilton's Diary closes with the telegram of Oct. 16, announcing that the War Council 'wish to make a change in the command, which will give them the opportunity of seeing you.' The curtain was soon to fall on one of the greatest military tragedies of our history. The success of the Dardanelles Expeditionary Force would have instantly reacted upon the situation elsewhere and would almost certainly have kept Bulgaria neutral. It was within our grasp, if all our available resources of men and matériel had been brought to bear, even after the initial blunders. Regarded as a 'side show,' it was certain to fail. Yet the failure was glorious. Never have the finest qualities of the British race shone more brilliantly in conditions so terribly discouraging. No troops have been more severely tried than those who fought and died in the Gallipoli Peninsula. The story of their devotion and endurance will live in our annals; but through it all runs the trail of the amateur who 'knows so little' that he can be trusted to do the right thing.'

SYDENHAM OF COMBE.

* 'Should the Dardanelles fall, then the world war has been decided against us:' 'My Memories.' Von Tirpitz.

Art. 9.-LORD SALISBURY.

The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury. By his daughter Lady Gwendolen Cecil. Vols I and II (18301880). Hodder & Stoughton, 1921.

'THE greatest teacher of all in Parliament,' says Bagehot, 'the head-master of the nation, the great elevator of the country-so far as Parliament elevates it-must be the Prime Minister: he has an influence, an authority, a facility in giving a great tone to discussion, or a mean tone, which no other man has.' This office, if one may call it so, of which Bagehot speaks, this property of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is one that has lately dropped very much out of view. A busy and constructive age requires rather of the Head of the Administration that he should get things done than that he should get them rightly done; and there are many who feel, if they do not say, that, in a difficult world like ours, his task is likely to be so much the more easily and efficiently performed if he is neither too scrupulous, nor too consistent, nor too gravely disinclined to exchange one coat for another. We are more sensible, they suppose, than our ancestors, who would not suffer the coalition of Fox and North and who buried Peel with the Corn Laws. In an epoch of advanced specialisation, they argue, we must not expect our politicians to be students of ethics, for there are no principles in politics. A statesman like a poet deserves to be permitted his licences, and sometimes very liberal licences too. Progress, they tacitly advise us, is so well assured that we can safely take short cuts and, if need be, crooked paths to reach our goal. The end will vindicate the means.

The hard fact that Bagehot registers, however, remains. Insensibly, and whether we like it or not, Parliament and the Nation, of which Parliament is, or is supposed to be, the mirror, does take its colour from the Prime Minister. Contempt for principle, super-mastery of sharp practice, infidelity towards those with whom one works and to whom one is bound by the subtle ties of private obligation, drain through from the main river of political life into the streams and backwaters of common existence just as certainly as high convictions,

just measures, and fine feelings. Evil communications, in fact, in public as well as private affairs, corrupt good manners. And, if nations have souls, and if souls are worth more than bodies, it follows that the supreme concern, if not the supreme interest for the critic of political biography, must be less the lively incidents or the brilliant passages of a career achieved than the broad effect of a statesman's character, method, and habit of mind upon the conscience of his country. No policy, however profitable, no diplomacy, however skilful, no rôle, however dramatic upon the greatest stage the world contains, should entitle a bad man to claim precedence over a good one in his country's annals. This is sound English doctrine. Where Frederick stands in Prussia, where Louis Quatorze and Napoleon stand in France, where Peter stands in Russia, there in England stands Alfred, the only really good man among those whom their subjects have reckoned to be 'great.'

Judged by this standard-and it is one with which he would not himself have quarrelled-the late Lord Salisbury will most probably be placed, as Queen Victoria placed him, high in the ranks of the British Prime Ministers of the 19th century. There were, perhaps, one or two passages in his life that some might have wished otherwise, and which apology explains more really than it excuses; but this is little in the high altitudes of politics with their prodigiously slippery slopes. Few capable judges would now deny that he left his country richer by the example of duty untiringly performed, of integrity unalloyed by personal ambition, and of talent schooled to the noble purposes of the State. The springs of his character, indeed, were never doubtful. Religion had satisfied him earlier than it satisfies many serious people of the justice of its claims; and his daughter has shown a bold but correct instinct in placing some account of his theology at the beginning rather than at the end of the story, to which place theologies are as often relegated by biographers as by men themselves. Thus he brought to his public work a mind trained and tempered by contact with what some have thought to be the queen of the sciences, and with what is, at all events, a fine instrument for refining and detaching the human mind. Himself a diligent student