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A Scouting Expedition
Brief outline of a Brigade order to Col. Fuller
Enemy partrol visits Bir Salmana & Hod Salmana about Dawn.
It is intended to suprise the Enemy at these places at Dawn on Sunday Sunday 9th & destroy all stores in vicinity & capture any Hostile partrol.
The 6th & 7th will be the advance party leaving Et Maler at 3 a.m. on Saturday camping at Oghratina the Day, & leave there at 8 p.m. for the above named places. 140 rounds of Ammunition will be carried by each man, & 3500 rounds for machine Gun.
One full Day's rations & one iron Ration will be carried together with 2 feeds for the Horses per man. Camels will accompany the advance party with Forage Feed & Water.
A Dressing Station will be formed at Dababis by the 2nd L.H.F. Ambulance. All reports & messages to be sent to Head of Main Body where Col. J.R. Royston, C.M.G., D.S.O., Brig. of 2nd L.H. Brigade will be found.
The Troops engaged besides the 2nd L.H. Brigade will be the Wellington M. Rifles & the 3rd Regiment. Col. Fuller has supreme control of the Advance Party.
Gallipoli
There are many things which we do not yet understand about the conception & conduct of this campaign; but during the past few months, we have learned a good deal that we did not know before.
At the time of Mr. Churchill's resignation & subsequently when Sir Ian Hamilton's dispatch was published (Jan. 6th 1916) the veil was drawn aside here & there so we were able to catch a few fleeting glimpses of the mystirous interior. We do not yet know if the original idea of this enterprise was sound from the Military, naval, & political points of view, but we do know that it was not properly thought out before it was undertaken, that it was not timed to suit the 2 branches of the service namely the naval & Military who ought to have worked hand in hand & did not.
Numbers were insufficient from the beginning, & when reinforcements did arrive they were found to be so new, so untrained to meet the pressing needs, that failure was met with at every turn. The material was excellent, but they were trained in haste, & were quite unseasoned to military operations. The Original Force was not kept up to its strength. It had been allowed to waste away for the want of proper drafts, & both Batts. & Regiments suffered according munitions were insufficient, Guns of a suitable nature