State Library of NSW
[Page 146]
attack, the scattered state of their armies, and the failure of their commissariat, and not to any inherent deterioration in the fighting qualities of the race. I would like to state here that Colonel Tyrrell was sent to the Army in Gallipoli to take over the duties as Chief of the Intelligence Department in the middle of September, when the active operations had come to a complete standstill. Thus we entered on this enterprise, knowing little or nothing of the enemy's defences, but strong in the faith that because 15-in. Howitzers had smashed up Antwerp, the Queen Elizabeth's 15-in, guns, backed by the Fleet's 12-in., could smash up the forts of the Narrows. But a Howitzer drops a shell vertically from a fixed platform, where shot after shot can be made to fall within a yard, whilst the high velocity flat trajectory shells of ships' guns can drop in nothing, to do any damage they have got to bore their way right through earthworks or else score direct hits on the gun embrasures. Neither can the same accuracy of fire be obtained, because a ship is always moving platform, shifting perceptibly with every puff of wind, with every wave, and every current.Now I would like to examine these operations in as much detail as your valuable space will allow. Mr. Churchill made this remarkable statement in the House: 'The first stage of the attack was successful beyond our hopes'. This is the first time I have ever heard this
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