Item 01: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett diary, 1915-1917 - Page 132
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[Page 132]
Staff. Surely every other consideration should be sacrificed to trying to save the unfortunate wounded who must otherwise perish miserably between the lines. But the Generals are never there to see these things. If They live comfortably at Imbros and have their dinners and their baths and apparently it never interferes with their night's rest the knowledge that houndreds of their fellow men are lying mutilated and unattended only a few yards away from our front lines crying for water suffering the agonies of the damned and knowing that their fate is a long low lingering death from superating wounds or from thirst and stravation. Their fate is awful to contemplate. Men are butchered to make a G.C.B or a K.C.M.G. These cursed letters after their names are apparently all our leaders think about. It is appaling that the destinies of Empires should be entrusted to such small amd petty and inhuman minds.
Sunday July 25th
This day I remainedvat Imbros and visited G.H.Q. where I saw Colonel Ward who explained to the reasons for the late arrival of my last cables in London. As usual it was due to a muddle on the part of the Military Authorites at Malta and in London. I am getting more and more sick of the whole business. But it is hopeless trying to arrange anything with such people. They have not got the smallest business acumen. Colonel Wilson dined with me and again he held for for hours on the muddles and mistakes which have been committed. More troops continue to arrive here. An entire Army Corps is to be concentrated on the island. They are a weedy looking lot and some of them hardly look as if they could carry their kits. Poor Devils. Nothing is sadder