For a time the two officers discussed the problem of the mines, and it was agreed that they should immediately set about organizing a new force to deal with them. The civilian crews of the trawlers would be sent home, and volunteers from the lost battleships would take their place. Destroyers would be equipped with sweeping apparatus, and at the next attempt an attack would be finally driven home.
On this encouraging note the Admiral and his chief-of-staff finally went to their cabins for a few hours’ rest.
Keyes rose next morning, March 19, and having shaved, as was his custom, with a copy of Kipling’s ‘If’ propped up before him, went out to survey the condition of the Fleet, which had spent the night sheltering about Tenedos. It was clear that a day or two must elapse before the attack could be resumed — the wind was again rising to a gale and there was much to be done in organizing the new minesweeping force — but everywhere the captains and the crews were eager to renew the fight.
In the course of the morning a message arrived from the Admiralty condoling with de Robeck over his setback but urging him to press on with the attack.
His losses were to be made good by four more battleships — the Queen, Implacable, London and Prince of Wales—which would sail at once. In addition the French Ministry of Marine was replacing the Bouvet with the Henri IV.
The damage to the French squadron had been severe: Gaulois had been forced to ground herself on Rabbit Island to the north of Tenedos, and the Suffren was leaking from the effects of a plunging shell. The Gaulois, however, was soon pumped out and refloated, and with the Inflexible and the Suffren she went off to Malta for repairs. Meanwhile the organization of the new minesweeping force began. One hundred and fifteen men from the trawler crews were sent home and there was an overwhelming response from the crews of the Ocean and the Irresistible for volunteers to replace them. Kites, wire mesh, and other tackle were ordered from Malta, and at Tenedos Greek fishermen were engaged to help the British crews in equipping the destroyers as minesweepers. All day in heavy seas this work was pressed forward, and on March 20 de Robeck was able to report to the Admiralty that fifty British and twelve French minesweepers, all manned by volunteers, would soon be available. Steel nets would be laid across the straits to deal with floating mines when the attack was renewed. ‘It is hoped,’ he added, ‘to be in a position to commence operations in three or four days.’
Now too an efficient squadron of aircraft under the command of Air Commodore Samson began to arrive. With this the Navy hoped greatly to improve their spotting of the enemy guns.
De Robeck also wrote to Hamilton, who had gone to Lemnos to inspect the 2,000 marines and the 4,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers who had already arrived there. He urged Hamilton not to take these troops back to Egypt for re-grouping as he proposed to do, since it might create a bad impression in the Balkans just at the moment when the Navy was about to resume its attack. ‘We are all getting ready for another go,’ he said, ‘and not in the least beaten or down-hearted.’
Hamilton did not share this confidence. He had been deeply moved by what he had seen of the battle on March 18, and perhaps he was affected by the sight of the damaged Inflexible creeping back to Tenedos. Perhaps he was influenced by Birdwood, who from the beginning had never believed that the Fleet could do the job alone. Other considerations — even a simple chivalrous desire to help the Navy — may have weighed with him; but at all events he sent the following message to Kitchener on March 19:
‘I am most reluctantly driven to the conclusion that the straits are not likely to be forced by battleships, as at one time seemed probable, and that, if my troops are to take part, it will not take the subsidiary form anticipated. The Army’s part will be more than mere landing parties to destroy forts; it must be a deliberate and prepared military operation, carried out at full strength, so as to open a passage for the Navy.’
Kitchener had replied with surprising energy: ‘You know my view, that the Dardanelles must be forced, and that if large military operations on the Gallipoli peninsula by your troops are necessary to clear the way, those operations must be undertaken, after careful consideration of the local defences, and must be carried through.’
This then was the situation on March 21—a Naval Command that believes that the Fleet can still get through alone, and an Army Command convinced that it cannot.
The following morning, March 22, de Robeck decided to take the Queen Elizabeth over to Lemnos for a conference with Hamilton. There is something of a mystery about this meeting, for none of the subsequent accounts of what took place are in agreement with each other. Keyes was occupied with the arrangements for the new naval attack and was not present, but he assures us that he believed that nothing more than future military movements were to be discussed. Those who assembled in the Queen Elizabeth were Hamilton, Birdwood and Braithwaite from the Army, and De Robeck and Wemyss from the Navy.
Hamilton’s version is as follows: ‘The moment he sat down de Robeck told us that he was now quite clear he could not get through without the help of all my troops. Before ever we went on board, Braithwaite, Birdwood and I agreed that, whatever we landsmen might think, we must leave the seamen to settle their own job, saying nothing for or against the land operations or amphibious operations until the sailors themselves turned to us and said that they had abandoned the idea of forcing the straits by naval operations alone. They have done so. The fat (that is us) is fairly in the fire.
‘No doubt we had our views. Birdie (Birdwood) and my own staff disliked the idea of chancing mines with million pound ships. The hesitants who always make hay in foul weather had been extra active since the sinking of the three men-of-war. Suppose the Fleet could get through with the loss of another battleship or two — how the devil would our troopships be able to follow? And the store ships? And the colliers?
‘This had made me turn contrary. During the battle I had cabled that the chances of the Navy pushing through on their own were hardly fair fighting chances, but since then de Robeck, the man who should know, had twice said that he did think that there was a fair fighting chance. Had he stuck to that opinion at the conference, then I was ready, as a soldier, to make light of military croaks about troopships. Constantinople must surrender, revolute or scuttle within a very few hours of our battleships entering the Marmara. Memories of one or two obsolete six-inchers at Ladysmith helped me to feel as Constantinople would feel when her rail and sea communications were cut and a rain of shell fell upon the penned-in populace from de Robeck’s terrific batteries. Given a good wind that nest of iniquity would go up like Sodom and Gomorrah in a winding sheet of flame.
‘But once the Admiral said his battleships could not fight through without help, there was no foothold left for the views of a landsman.
‘So there was no discussion. We at once turned our faces to the land scheme.’
This account does not square with what Keyes knew of de Robeck’s views up to the time of this meeting; and it does not square with a message the Admiral sent to London after the meeting was over.
‘I do not hold the check on 18th decisive,’ he wrote, ‘but, having met General Hamilton on 22nd and heard his proposals, I now consider a combined operation essential to obtain great results and object of campaign… To attack Narrows now with Fleet would be a mistake, as it would jeopardize the execution of a better and bigger scheme.’